By Any Other Name
by Audriss
Summary: His life was destroyed in a blaze of guilt and accusations when a crooked cop killed the only one that mattered to him. But then again, he wasn't prepared for the shock that followed after he'd more or less given up on life itself.
1. Never Without Misery

He lay down wide-awake in the large king-size bed of the seedy no-tell motel, and stared up at the crumbling ceiling, the peeling wallpaper and the horrific paint combinations on top of one another on the walls.

He couldn't help but listen to the droplets of yellow rust-colored water leaking from pipes twice his age in the bathroom. They would have been thrice her age, if she were here with him.

Unable to find a comfortable position he shifted in the bed, as he saw her face in front of his eyes, and in the chipped paint of the ceiling and the faded patterns of the decaying wallpaper. He saw her face even when he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He didn't sleep much nowadays.

When the smile of hers wouldn't leave him alone - it never did - he groaned. She had been his anchor in the world; losing her was a blow against his face. His stomach churned, feeling like it fell a twenty-foot drop, and made him dry heave once. Thinking about her was making him queasy, still.

He sat up in the darkness, leaning his elbows against his knees and staring at the disgustingly stained red carpet of the floor, and tried not to think as to what the white and brown blotches on it might be.

He sighed and let his fingers slide over his face and into his overgrown brown hair. He shook his head, as he threw his legs over the edge of the bed, still resting his forearms against his thighs, letting his palms hang down between his legs as he hunched over. Closing his eyes once, and then quickly opening them, he shot a look at the bathroom door unclosed.

The sickly yellow lights of the bathroom buzzed and blinked. They weren't the only light source into the room from the open bathroom door. He wasn't sure if the door would actually close. He hadn't tried, but it didn't mean jackshit.

The twice eaten pea soup colored curtains were slightly agape and allowed the hollow and pale street lights to stream through the window, and creating shadow puppets on the dark brown wall; shadow puppets of her and the accident.

Everything in the horrid motel room was repulsing. He had not bothered to contemplate it when he had moved in just few days ago, but as the time passed he was starting to think he should have.

He huffed and turned to see the clock on the equally seedy nightstand. It was only barely 3 am. Not even the Gideons had donated a Bible for this place, or it had been stolen a long time ago. Then again, what would he do with such a book? Faith hadn't done shit for him lately.

He stood up, adjusting his sweatpants that clung low on his narrow hips. He wore no shirt; in the feeble light, the room was allowed to see the few scars that crisscrossed his back, beneath a tattoo of two, winged demons. His muscles rippled with each movement of his body and arms. There were not many people in his life that knew about the scars on his back; a thing he rarely divulged. He bore deeper, yet invisible, scars and secrets in his heart. He had already resigned to them, knowing in his mind that he wouldn't ever get over them, or even if he wanted to get over them.

He began stretching, rolling his shoulders slowly, and then pulling his right arm over his left one, reaching as far as he could. He pinned his arm against his chest with his left, and heard his joints pop, while he felt his muscles stretch. He did the same thing with his left arm. He opened and tightened his fingers, twirled both of his wrists around once or twice, hearing the joints and cartilage crunch, and blood beginning to pump faster through his limbs.

Groaning out loud approvingly, before he stretched his fingers out again, he walked past the heavy bag he had bolted onto the ceiling the first night he had signed into the Motel 6. Figuring he would probably pay for the four holes in the ceiling, but in the end he couldn't be bothered by that. At the end of this job, there was a 50/50 chances that either he was dead, or 100 miles down the road when they would notice the holes in the ceiling in the first place.

The damn motel room was in shitty condition anyway, and he wasn't sure if anyone would notice four small holes among the chipped paint, ripped wallpaper and bullet hole or two here and there. Either way he wasn't going to let that spoil the moment he currently needed in order to get his mind off of things.

Picking up the bloodied rags he used when he sparred with the boxing sack, he began to wrap them around his palms and fingers.

The bruises and scratches from his last job, a payment recollection; easy gig, shitty pay, hadn't healed yet, but he didn't mind. He just kept wrapping his fingers one by one, watching the blood red scrapes and the slightly swollen skin around the wounds.

Pain was his friend. Pain told him he was still alive. Pain told him not to forget the spiced apples and lemonade he still could imagine lingering on his lips when he had kissed her.

He could tie his hands in his sleep, he had done it so many times. Amidst the wrapping of his fingers, he looked over at the table by the window he was leaning against.

His guns, and the cleaning kit, were splayed all over the surface. There was a red rag, stained with oil and blood and other things, next to his Sig Sauer 9MM, and his favorite custom made revolver Smith & Wesson M686. He preferred his Sig when on a job, but sometimes - just occasionally - that bloody revolver had saved his sorry ass.

He was certain that the sight would have caused someone to jump, feel nauseated, or even made them faint, but he was used to seeing them. But, yet, agreeing to the unknown spectator's point of view, the sight was indeed sickening. Looking into the trunk of his car was another mess of sick stuff.

But then again, so was his job as a private contractor, a mercenary of sorts, a gun-for-hire.

He most definitely could agree that most of the things he was hired to do was barely above the law and those that weren't were far more sickening than any collection of guns in the world. But, it was a job of his own choosing.

If he didn't do it, someone else would. And he might be on the kill list instead. At least, it paid well enough to keep him holding onto his next meal ticket, his car, his prized bike and some other necessities.

Guns, for him at least, were just a big bonus. He preferred his crossbow or his hunting rifle and his sniper rifle. Whenever he wasn't on a job, he spent his days in the woods. He didn't always hunt, didn't kill game unless it was for food, but the forest didn't judge, or throw malicious glares at him expecting him to screw up. When he was pissed at the world, or at himself, he used his rifle to practice nearly impossible shots; a Marine Scout Sniper through and through.

Turning his eyes away from the table and the guns, he leaned against the wall and looked out of the window, into the darkness of the October night.

Outside, under the window there was a rusted-out and broken-down pool with no water and mostly leaves, branches, dirt and rocks on the bottom. No one had used the pool in ages, and it showed. The cracks of the tiles on the edges and at the bottom meant it couldn't be filled, unless someone put the effort to fix it.

If it had been summer, he might have missed the chance to jump into the pool, not that he hanged around pools and babes in bikinis that often, but occasionally he indulged himself. His brother on the other hand, he would have lounged eagerly, surrounded by scantily dressed women, by the pool. But he was a one woman kind of a guy.

The motel parking lot had been paved years ago, probably at the same time they had built the pool, but now it was cracked and there were dangerous and annoying potholes all over the place. He had driven into one, when he had swerved on the parking lot some few weeks ago.

This job of his had forced him to find a new rhythm in sleeping.

Even with a normal 'gun-for-hire' job he slept mostly during the day and was expected to perform his job during the nighttime. There were no babes in bikinis at night. Unless he found himself in a strip club, or perhaps in Las Vegas. Small towns, such as this, didn't attract them much. He had never really liked Las Vegas much, or other big cities. He preferred his own peace and quiet. Big cities drained energy, they ate people from inside out, they definitely ate _him_ inside out. But he had been keeping a homebase of sorts at Las Vegas for the past year, living at the edge of the city, but not really by choice that was pleasant.

Hiding himself in the masses of people, being average enough and unmemorable kept him under the radar. He had left his old life behind him the moment he had been released from the prison they had shoved him into, ignoring his parole and any friends and family that might have still been waiting for him. He knew well enough that he was wanted for at least his parole violation.

Grimacing, he turned to look at the room, as he sat on the edge of the table properly, finishing wrapping his palms.

The off-white sheets of the bed hadn't been changed in ages. He chose to ignore the stains of the sins of the past residents on the mattress. The cleaning crew obviously had broken their vacuum as well, since the floor hadn't been properly cleaned either.

He had sat in the motel room for two days, unmoving. He had accepted this assignment after Merle had begged him to.

He hadn't asked any questions, but he knew there was something about the way he had asked Daryl to take the gig.

Merle Dixon didn't beg. And this time he had begged like his life depended on it.

It probably did, though. He had thought about that while driving PCH up to Washington State.

He was numb, feeling like he was dead on the inside. Jobs like these had always been his least favorite ones. They did make him want to be dead on the inside.

He wasn't. It was always like this before he was about to pull off a job. The hours before he actually dove into it were always the hardest.

His nightmares, his guilt, hadn't left him alone since the night of the accident, since the night his life had changed inevitably; since the night he chose to pick up the guns once more and go blazing into the war.

Pictures. Flashing, beading across the room. Speaking in flared tones that he couldn't understand or comprehend - - because he chose not to. He didn't want to. It was something he already knew by heart. He'd been accused of something he wasn't guilty of, but still he had allowed it to happen, and he was accused of something he was totally guilty of, and shouldn't have allowed himself to do it.

Blaming him had been far easier, because he blamed himself.

He finally finished wrapping the bandages around his hands and cracked his neck, standing up and then jumping up and down slightly to warm up his tired muscles. He shook his hands and stretched his arms, and cracked his neck twice more; making sure his neck was warmed up.

He locked his eyes with the heavy bag and crouched down a bit, lifted his arms up in front of his face, and then began dancing around and about the sack.

With each hit he flinched from the pain that shot from the bruised and scraped knuckles. He was sure his little finger had a hairline fracture, but that was definitely little when compared to the other fractures and broken bones he had experienced in his life. Yeah, he couldn't be bothered by some little thing on his finger, when it wasn't even swollen.

He needed to keep him busy until he was exhausted.

Twenty minutes of hitting the bag drew sweat on his skin. Twenty-five minutes and he was breathing heavily. Thirty minutes and someone was banging the wall with a shoe and screaming for him to stop.

"Hey, Jerk-off! I got to fucking sleep!"

"Yeah, so do I," he groaned out loud, and punched the bag once more, before turning away from the boxing sack and heading for the bathroom, that was as crappy shit hole as the rest of the motel room.

He opened the faucets of the shower, more hot than cold, and let the water pour down from the nozzle as he rolled the wrappers off his hands and kicked his sweatpants off, then he stepped under the spray and let the steaming hot water to soothe his aching body.

He winced when the hot water reached the scrapes and scratches and the throbbing bruises on his sides, arms and back. He swore out loud and tried to make a mental note that he'd remember next time he wouldn't let things evolve that far. Once explosives were drawn out, ducking for cover wasn't such a bad idea. Either way, explosions weren't a good thing in the middle of a job anyway, especially, when he was asked to deal it with utmost delicacy.

He'd dealt with it. He'd done his job, and moved on. But he would be screwed if the man who had hired him would hear about the incident with C4. Hence he had accepted the payment collection gladly.

This new job of his would probably prove to be slightly more eventful than fighting some douche bag for the dimes he refused to pay to cover his gambling debts. It was clear by now that it would be something vile, and it had Merle hanging in the balance.

After showering, he found a fresh towel. It was fresh only because he had brought it along with him from the Seattle hotel he had stayed few days ago. Stealing towels wasn't more than just a petty theft but he was actually glad he had taken the towel, he wished he had snatched the fucking robe as well.

The one towel he had hanging on the wall of the molding bathroom wasn't something he wanted to touch his skin. The motel owner had never even heard of robes, he guessed. He had used oily garage rags to bandage up gunshot wounds, but that towel was a bacteria kingdom of its own.

So, he wrapped his stolen, yet fresh towel around his waist and leaned against the sink. At first he let his head hang down, but then he sighed and wiped the steam off the mirror and looked at his reflection.

He had bags the size of Texas under his eyes. That was due to the poorly slept nights; when he had had just three hours of nights sleep. He hadn't shaved properly in a week. The stubble was growing up and soon he could call it a beard. His cheeks were hollowed and he sneered with disdain.

He hadn't eaten properly either.

A burger and three cups of coffee wasn't healthy for him, and he knew it, but that was what he had available as long as he was on the road. And he had nothing in sight to tell him that he would get off the road anytime soon. If he had, he could head back home; not the cesspool that was Las Vegas, but back to Georgia, back to Orchard Hill.

But Georgia didn't call to him anymore like it had before. His blood didn't draw him back there. Not after her accident. He wanted, but at the same time, didn't want to go back. It was force of things, if he found his way back there. He had burned too many bridges behind him to go back there with his tail between his legs. Even after the investigation was seen through, the people back home blamed him for the accident.

He could blame the people for his choice of a career. And then again, he could blame just about every single event of his life.

That was a sad and sorry story if anything.

He glanced at the clock again and sighed. It was barely four am.

Two hours and he'd be on his way to break yet another law.

"Shit," he swore out, slamming his fist on the edge of the sink and realized it was ready to fall off the wall. He stepped back and moved back into the room and found something clean to wear. Come to think of it, he would have to find an all-night Laundromat before soon. He was running out of clean clothes.

He pulled a pair of black boxers and a black t-shirt on and tossed the towel on the chair. He knew he should put it to hang to dry but he wasn't in the mood for any housekeeping chores. Nothing in the motel room encouraged anyone to do housekeeping chores.

He wandered back into the room, and sat down on the chair by the desk. He picked up the Sig and started to clean the barrel with the cleaning brush. He could just as well finish up with the cleaning. It was clearly pointless for him to try to get some sleep. The morning would come and he would pay for his coffee on an IV at some local diner.

He filled up the part of meticulous gun crazed hermit well for the next two hours. When he finally glanced at the clock, it was already 6:24 am.

He placed both of the guns, the Sig and the revolver, on the small green towel he had spread on the desk, and gathered the cleaning supplies on their box. Then, he stood up and stretched his back. He'd give his broken little finger for someone to walk over his back.

He went digging for his jeans and finally got his socks and shoes on too. He snatched his wallet from the table, and next his Sig, which he stuffed under the belt of his jeans in his back and threw his dark brown leather jacket on. Scratching his stubble he locked the door and headed for his car.

A new, black truck stood on the parking lot undisturbed, three slots down from his door. It was the only thing in his life now that he valued more than his own life, now that she was gone. It was too flashy, and maybe too big, but it was big enough to fit most of his belongings. Sometimes it was good to have a bigger car. Sometimes he found himself sleeping in it, and it would be far too uncomfortable to do so in a smaller vehicle.

He found his keys in his pocket and opened the car door. Sitting down he pulled the door shut and reached for the seat belt.

~::~

Zack had proposed to her when he had crawled home drunk out of his mind. She had opened the door for him, and watched him sway down the hall and into the living room, where he had plopped on the couch and flicked on the TV. He'd watched wrestling, when he had popped the cap of his Heineken and after two or three gulps of beer, had offered it to her as a ring.

It was so unromantic that she didn't know how to say ' _no_ '.

There she had stood, in front of the couch and stared at him, when he had slipped the cap on her finger. He had mumbled something incoherent, thought things would turn out better after this. He had watched wrestling for an hour and a half before he had passed out on her couch, once again.

She'd spent a good hour sitting in the kitchen crying and staring at the cap she had dropped on the table.

It was honestly the first real memory she knew that wasn't figment of her own imagination, because sometimes - most days - everything seemed a little bit too wild for her to classify as reality.

It was truly strange. Everything else in her life, before her 'accident' seemed like a bad dream, or a foggy and unclear memory of a life she didn't know anymore; couldn't help but wonder if she had known it in the first place.

Her father had told her about the accident she had been in just few years ago, and that she had lost her memory of the time prior to it. He told her she had been in a coma for over a year, she had been in gruesome physical therapy and rehabilitation after that and then, he had taken her from doctor to doctor in order to regain her memories. But nothing had worked. Most of the few past years were still hazy, fragmented and cracked like a dry earth.

And some days she could hardly remember her father, but the man was the only constant in her life after the hospital stays and the physical therapy. He had been by her side as she fought to get better, learning to walk and speak again.

There were some days, though, when she'd stood by the mirror in the bathroom, touching the fading scars on her forehead, her cheek and her wrist wondering and trying to remember what exactly had happened to her.

Her father had not told her much of it, just vague story how she had been mugged and shot while on her way back from work. He seemed to blame someone in her life at that time for it, but never spoke much about them either. He had never answered to her what she was doing before the accident, and anything she could think of didn't fit to her, and most definitely didn't trigger any memories.

All she knew, that they had operated on her for hours, she had spent that year in a coma and when she finally had come to, she was who she was now, with an impenetrable wall around the memories of her past.

Obviously she could hardly believe that her mugger would have slashed her wrist, but whenever she asked about them, the doctors, nurses, even the police and her father shut down like they were robots, changing the subject and balancing on that proverbial tight robe to another spot to keep her from getting an answer.

But despite all that, she'd gotten better. She had built new memories, albeit only four years old. And somehow, the old life had hidden itself inside her mind, behind that smoky curtain that she didn't want to disturb, fearing there might be something she didn't want to know.

But eventually she got tired of her father's overprotective nature, and after a fight she had found herself living in Seattle. A small town girl in a big city such as that was probably a recipe for a disaster that she should have foreseen.

So, when Zack handed her the beer bottle cap, proposing to her, slurring some words of affection she knew she was better than this. But Zack? Zack wasn't.

It had been so stupid of her to think he would ever change. He wouldn't have changed no matter what she would have done, and she wasn't about to accept him as her husband, so, she did the only thing she could and gave up.

It was even easier, when he had taken his bad mood up to her and beaten her down in his drunken stupor. Bruised ribs and a black eye weren't an easy thing to explain at work, but when she walked out on Zack, she walked out of her job in Seattle law firm. And it was surprisingly easy to tell her boss to bite it when she went to get her stuff from her desk and then proceeded to march out.

She moved back to the Kitsap County; back to Bethel. The whole county of forests, national parks and United States Naval Bases.

Somehow that didn't quite feel like home, though.

She was told after the accident that claimed her memory, that she had grown up there, with boys who wanted to become marines. Those boys were nice enough; they had treated girls like her with respect. Probably because apparently her father had once been one of them, one of the marines. _Semper Fi_ to the end.

Her father had been less than pleased when she had moved in with him, but he had tolerated her, because he had no other choice - he was her father after all. He told her brutally honest that he had expected her to make better decisions, and her coming back to the cabin was somehow an inconvenience.

So, moving back to her father's cabin was a step from bad to worse, not only because of her father's attitude, but because she had to explain to the people of her former hometown why she had returned. She had to keep things simple and tell something surprisingly vague. People, not just her father, expected her to do better, they expected her not to come back, even as much as they liked her. She should have gotten a job at some big firm and have her dream, unlike those who stayed behind.

She returned and smiled and replied to all the questions by the people and neighbors of her former hometown. She came back, and got a waitressing job at the King's Diner and Bar. A year of that and she was slowly slipping into the mental state of a comatose patient she had been before - a year she had spent in this small, former lumber town and she was losing her grasp on reality slowly.

The people had stopped asking a long time ago and she wasn't telling.

But a year later, after she had shown up at her father's doorstep, he had died. They said it was a hunting accident, but she didn't buy it.

Hershel Howe wasn't stupid; he wasn't one of those City hunters, who would shoot themselves in the foot because they didn't recognize which end was the dangerous one on their firearm. He knew his way around weapons.

She wasn't as shocked or devastated about his death as she thought she would have been - should have been? No, it was a relief, it was an unconventional feeling of freedom, but at the same time a hard realization that her father gone she had no means to find out what had truly happened or if she had any family remaining.

But, when the Sheriff told her about him, she knew it was anything but an accident, at least from his part. There was a reason why he lived in the secluded area of Kitsap County, instead of in the small town of Bethel.

There was a reason why she suspected the other hunters, some of whom had had trouble with him in the past, but she couldn't prove anything, and the Sheriff wouldn't investigate. After the coroner concluded it to be an accidental death by a firearm, there seemed to be even less she could do.

Again, her life had been turned upside down, and she had deemed her Small-Town America unsafe. It hadn't been safe in a long time, and she had a gut feeling that it would go from bad to worse before it would be engulfed into flames altogether.


	2. And Your Will Shall Decide Your Destiny

He parked his truck in front of the only diner in Bethel and climbed out of the car. Having been awake all night, his body strongly demanded coffee and something to eat. He'd used to drinking coffee after he'd gotten out of prison, because the halfway house he was assigned to was a hellhole of the worst kind, full of drug users, alcoholists, desperate and dying convicts that fought, threw up and later cried for their mothers.

Coffee had become handy after that. His own nightmares were a constant companion, and he had learned to deal with them whether it was about his family or the horrors of the war, or more recently, the night of the accident.

Right now, though, he had a job to do, despite the disgusting nature of it, he needed to stay awake and alert, and he would have to start his search after getting some breakfast.

He took in the surroundings of the diner; the parking lot, hair and nail salon, the diner, a bank and a small grocery store, and further down the road, the motel he had a room, something of a city hall with a sheriff's station, and a gas station. Nothing special, just your average small town in the middle of the woods, in the rainy and foggy state of Washington.

It had become his second nature to map the place well enough to be able to plot his course the hell out of dodge if need be. And Bethel had one problem when it came to calculating an escape route. It was impossible to get lost in that town, since after three left turns one would end up back at the starting point. The only road out of town was both easy and predictable, creating a whole slew of other problems, which he tried not to think about.

"Hmhmp," he huffed, not out of disdain but maybe a little sad that he was not in Georgia anymore; hadn't been in a long time, and immediately chastising himself for walking down the memory lane. What could he possibly be wanting from Georgia?

He locked the car door and then turned around and stuffed the keys into his pocket. He glanced around, noticing that the two cars near him weren't locked, and it reminded him of that dingy, old town where he had been raised. Chewing his cheek he interrupted himself from going down the memory lane and made his way to the diner's door.

King's Diner and Bar read on the door, and on the windows, as well as up on the light fixture on the roof.

It seemed decent enough, though. Maybe he could pump some information from the waitresses if they were in a mood for chit-chatting his ears off.

A lifetime ago he was able to get information just by listening to people. Unfortunately now, getting that same information required him to cozy up and pal around with people. It was hell.

In reality, he wasn't much of a talker. He hadn't been a chatterbox when he was a detective, having left most of the talking to his partner, but now, he was practically a mute.

He opened the door, and heard that bell chime above it, drawing his attention to it for a split second, before he turned to look at the crowd in the diner.

No one paid attention to him entering despite the bell announcing his arrival. Nobody turned to stare at him friendly or otherwise. It was a good thing. It had been a long time since he had been in a small town, such as this one, and he caught himself surprised how he had already forgotten all the quirks of theirs. Coming from a small town himself abhorred the nosy busybodies, and the absolute lack of privacy. He had suffered from it all his life.

The diner itself was just an average diner. Few people sat in booths, talking and eating, some sat on bar stools by the counter. He gave a quick once over at the people, spotting a mechanic, few truckers and some elderly citizens.

He'd seen a dime a dozen of these places - all the diners he had visited between East Coast and West Coast. They might have been decorated differently, there might have been different foods and beverages on the menu, and some might have been rowdier than others, but all the diners seemed to essentially be the same. You'd seen one, you'd seen them all.

Next, he let his gaze sweep over the rest of the diner, and took note of the kitchen, the counter, the restrooms and all the booths. Counting quickly the workers - a cook and two waitresses, not much out of the ordinary. At six-thirty in the morning, it was the norm.

He was looking for two specific people, and as far as he knew, none of the customers nor the workers were those two. Of course, he wasn't expecting people to actually walk around wearing name tags all day long to make his job easier.

The man who had hired him to do this job for him was late in sending him the much needed pictures and he wasn't in a much of a mood for waiting. He had their names, and he figured he could go to the city hall to dig through the records and find an address to the names.

Coming to a small town like this was always risky. Everyone and their mother knew each other and if he asked too many questions, or started to shoot anyone who vaguely resembled the faint description given to him made him a target of suspicions and investigation of the local law enforcement.

Now, obviously he could poke around a bit, but his only dilemma with that was that he would have to burn at least one of his fake identities he'd created with great deal of money and time, if he was to poke and ask around.

His desire to finish this job, get it out of the way, eventually won the competition, and he decided that destroying one of the false names was an acceptable casualty. He wanted to get it done, get paid and see what was waiting for him around the corner. Jobs like this were on his shitlist of jobs he hated anyway.

Currently, the shitlist had two names. Hershel Howe and his daughter Rose Howe, who as he was told were witnesses in a criminal case against a man with connections to organized crime.

Fuck if he knew it for sure. Maybe she was a girl he'd had his eyes on and her father had dragged the poor thing away from the douchebag.

At the moment, the man paying for this job was more than eager to get rid of them both. All in all there was high chances that the man who had hired him was the man in question in the same case, and he wanted them gone from the face of the earth.

He had taken few of these jobs before, contract killings.

There had been six people before these two, and that made him less proud of his skills and his training. He wasn't proud of himself for accepting jobs like these in the first place.

But accepting these jobs and the payment that came with it paid the bills, his and his brother's, and the payment wasn't just dimes. Accepting these gigs made sure his brother wasn't the one taking them and getting in trouble. It was ironic that what he was doing would land himself back inside if he was caught when he was trying to keep his brother out of prison at the same time.

Gun-for-hire wasn't such a stellar career choice that was for sure.

He'd tried to take everything into account when he had began this, practically fresh out of prison, and nothing to lose. He'd collected enough dirt for collateral if he ever was arrested for the crimes he was hired to do. One of the handful of friends he had would deliver it to the authorities if something should happen to him. But, even so, he knew what he was doing was wrong.

Before, when he was still in the Marine Corps, he had killed people as ordered by his superiors. His moral compass was appease with that, because it told him he wasn't responsible for those actions. He had been a Marine Sniper, and as such he was compelled to follow orders. He'd done it for his country, for the service and as ordered. It wasn't in him to murder people in cold blood. Not without a reason.

This job?

Despite the fact that they seemed to be witnesses in a criminal case, and killing them would just let the man in question to walk free, the dubious reasons given to him left him with a gnawing gut feeling that nothing was what it seemed to be.

Swallowing, he felt the tightness in his throat, and winced at his thoughts, as he slipped into a booth, and picked up the menu.

Idly, barely paying any attention to the selection of food items, he kept his thoughts in motion. He knew exactly what it was that made him disinclined to follow through with the assignment.

The man, a father, in question had the same name as her father had had. His name had been a popular name in the 1920's, but now, it wasn't much of a choice for a child around the country. Because of that, it always struck him hard when he heard that name. It brought her face bathed in sunlight into his mind, and he knew he couldn't block her from his thoughts just like that. He had heard his name, along with hers, over the last almost five years surprisingly frequently, which always landed a mental kick in the head for him.

Beth Greene's elderly father Hershel Greene had been more of a father figure to Daryl than his own father had ever even tried. Her father had been present at his trial, crushed by the loss of his youngest daughter, and nervous about testifying against the man he had thought loved her.

" _Daryl Dixon is a good man. Maybe a little misguided in some areas of his upbringing."_

Hershel's testimony hadn't been all about bashing him, though.

" _He loves… ahem… loved my daughter, I am sure of that."_

Yes, he certainly had.

" _I know of his… temper, and his father. But I have never had any reason to think that he himself would be a user of any illegal substances, or that he was hurting my daughter in any way."_

He would have never hurt her. He would have rather died.

Hearing him speak on his behalf, despite being the prosecutor's witness was one of the reasons he still felt devastated that the former veterinarian was forced to go through the trial and finally see Daryl get sentenced to prison.

 _Prison_. He could have predicted that when that blonde haired woman entered his life. Maybe not exactly what was going to happen, but that he would end up hurting her in unspeakable ways. He wouldn't be able to escape his genes.

 _Maybe_ he hadn't pulled the trigger on her but he still felt guilty as hell.

He placed the laminated menu back on the table, and reached for his wallet. He cursed internally that he hadn't brought more cash with him. He didn't want to leave a trace of him, by making a withdrawal or using an AMT. He frowned and went through the coins and the bills in it, he managed to ignore the waitress that came to the table ready to ask what he would like to have.

Daryl said nothing, and didn't wait for her to ask for his order or even greet him. Instead he picked up the mug, signaling he wanted coffee. He could feel she was taken slightly aback, but said nothing, possibly thinking he wasn't a morning person. He let her have her disillusions. He barely gave her one look, when she finally asked what he would like to eat, with her melodious, soft voice.

"French toast, bacon, eggs," he ordered gruffly.

Only when she turned around and left his side, he glanced after her. His eyes focused on the bouncing blonde ponytail as she walked back to the counter and handed the order into the kitchen. Daryl couldn't hear what was said, if anything, over the sizzling of cooking food and some general mumbling of other people, and then laughter of the two waitresses over something the other one shared.

His stomach tightened, and lurched, at the sight of the blonde hair. He knew it was yet another mirage, another trick of his sorrowful mind. It was bad enough that he had lost her, and that he had been blamed for her death. By everyone.

But his mind conjuring up these memories was pure torture. Instead of paying attention to the other patrons in the diner, he turned and gazed out of the window.

~::~

The small bell over the diner-bar door chimed and she turned idly to watch the man enter the diner's morning non-traffic. At 6:20 am, there weren't that many people hanging about, only the very few every-morning regulars.

She glanced at him; a tall, dark, handsome that one - as lame as it sounded like.

When she looked at him with curiosity, longer and more focused, she saw he had a tired face, scraggly stubble that was so far past a five o'clock shadow that it might have been already a beard. His hair, dark brown, descended onto his shoulders, and there was an ear peeking through some wisps. He wore dark jeans, brown hunter's boots, and black leather jacket with a black leather vest on top. She hadn't seen him before, even though there was some familiarity in him, so, she just categorized him as a passer through.

He definitely had a poorly slept night written on his face and when he sat down into a booth, she picked up the coffee pot, and tucked the pad and pencil into the pocket of the apron and slowly walked to him. He was in need of a big cup of coffee, maybe even a good breakfast.

He didn't even look at her when he wiggled the mug in his hand before placing it back on the table, and practically ignored her as she poured the hot liquid. He was concentrating on his wallet. When she asked what he wanted - other than the coffee - he ordered French Toast, bacon and eggs.

She sighed internally. He counted dimes and she shook her head knowing that she wouldn't get a good tip out of him. Coffee she'd serve him even if money was an issue here. Few extra refills wouldn't throw the diner off the edge, and no one bothered to count brewed pots of coffee anyways.

Food, on the other hand, was another issue. She most definitely couldn't feed every single stray dog the cat dragged in, even though something about this man compelled her to do so.

She bit her lip, nodding her head, even though the man was ignoring her, and scribbled the order on her notepad. She ripped the page off, tucked the notepad back into the pocket of her apron, and picked up the coffee pot from the table. She turned and headed back to the counter. Halfway there, she turned to look at him over her shoulder. He was staring out of the window and watching at the empty parking lot of the diner and the adjacent gas station.

Handing the order over the kitchen counter to Stan, their cook and the diner owner, she then retreated behind the bar. There were no other customers in need of her at that particular moment. She picked up the morning paper, Bremerton Times, and began leafing through it. Leaning her elbows down on the counter, she let her eyes skim over the words of the article about the lumber mill of the town. They had decided to close it. She bit her lip, and sighed again. It was a low blow to the small town. As she flipped the page, she glanced over the diner, looking to see if any of the customers wanted something. Her eyes landed on the Tall-Dark-And-Handsome and she caught herself hoping he had not come here to look for a job. Not that the man didn't fit the bill of a lumberjack, but he wouldn't have much luck with the work now.

Her mind went back to count the minutes when she could turn the table over for someone who actually had money, surprised that she had categorized the man as someone in need of work. A nagging feeling in the back of her mind argued that she wasn't like that, that she _had not been like that before_.

 _Well, how would you know?_ she chided herself, biting her lip and frowning.

The guy seemed like he didn't have money. Some of the truckers, they seemed to have deep pockets, and they were always looking for company. They gave enough a tip for few kind words, cute smile and some extra moments spent talking to them. She shuddered at her own thoughts. Of course, there were always douchebags who wanted more, but she knew her way around the truckers. This guy, he seemed to be looking for something, and if it was a job, this was definitely the last place he should try.

She lowered her gaze, ashamed that the hometown of hers was in such a state. Her eyes landed on the golden ring she wore on her index finger always; her mother's dolphin ring. Her mother had been a waitress, or so she had been told. Remembering her mother so abruptly made her immediately sad, that she could not even remember her, and then, berating herself for thinking about such things like it was her fault.

She wasn't happy in this town, and she couldn't figure out for the life of her why she still remained there when all she seemed to do was slowly descend into depression.

A subdued sigh escaped from her lips, and she shifted her attention back to her newspaper. She had reached the second paragraph of the article when she heard a ding of the bell at the counter of the kitchen.

"Order up!" Stan called and slid the plate on the serving counter. She turned around, folded the newspaper and tossed it under the counter, next to the sugar pouches and BBQ seasoning, and the row of snow-white napkins.

"Thanks, Stan," she smiled at the middle-aged man, owner and cook of the diner.

Stanley King was a funny guy and a great cook. He had tired gray eyes and salt-and-peppered, sandy brown hair, and he was a bit chubby around the middle. He was like an uncle to Rose, and she couldn't be more appreciative that he and his wife had been helping her ever since her father had died.

She picked the order, walking around the counter and to the table.

He was still staring out of the window and ignored her when she placed his order on the placemat in front of him. She twisted her lips, arched her eyebrow and then huffed a little. Shaking her head, she turned to leave, when he suddenly reached over and grabbed her arm. It was a tight grasp and she let out a yelp of surprise at the contact.

She turned to face the man; and in an instant, she saw his eyes grow wide with surprise. Shock spreading onto his face, before it diluted into surprise, disbelief and finally something of a reluctance. She saw him wince, and then pull his arm back, letting go of hers, and recoil like he had been burned.

The man mumbled a word, something she couldn't quite figure out, though it sounded like a name in a form of a question. His lips moved, a little, and she saw him shook his head, frowning.

His reaction jolted through her mind.

Her first reaction was to bring her fingers to touch her the scar on her forehead. It felt like a bump underneath her skin, with few fractured scar tissue lines spreading from the initial place of impact, like a macabre star.

The scar on her cheek was fading, and she could hide it with her makeup.

Both scars on the other hand made her incredibly self aware of how she looked, and the way he yanked his hand away… she could hardly imagine it being from anything else than the way she looked.

But the way he looked at her, it was like he knew her. And the way he shook his head, frowned and shifted awkwardly, it all somehow felt familiar to her. But that couldn't be real. He was just a passer through.

And she? She had lived in this town for all her life, if she didn't count the year she had spent in Arizona in rehabilitation, and then another year in Seattle, where she had met Zack.

Maybe she just had that kind of a face - a familiar one; something that reminded him of someone he had known.

But then again, she had forgotten her past due to her accident. She took a deep breath, and was about to ask him, if he knew her. But, the man shook his head again. His arm dropped onto the table, and he mumbled a hasty apology for grabbing her arm like that. Despite every fiber of her being telling her to call Stan for help, she didn't, because the touch felt familiar. She stared at the man she had never seen before - to her knowledge - and touched her arm from where he had grabbed her, and swore it had felt like it had happened before, somewhere beyond that smoky curtain that still divided the past and present in her mind.

"I-It's fine," she mumbled, and waved her hand.

"Another cup?" he said, his voice betraying no emotions, no confirmation that they knew each other, as he lifted his coffee cup towards her, "And could I have some cold water, please?"

It was remarkable, like a switch had shifted and made him forget the past few seconds. But, his voice was considerably soft now, not like when he had ordered his breakfast trio.

She took few nervous steps, looking at the man sitting in the booth, "Certainly."

 _He wasn't a complete jackass_ , she thought when she looked at him and nodded yet again.

His eyes were icy blue, and despite the initial roughness in them, she saw they were also very nice, kind eyes. And it made her smile at him. Then, her eyes wandered down and she saw the bruises on his hand. She winced, snuffing the little whimper that was about to escape from her throat.

 _A fighter, that one_ , she thought again, looking at him under her brow.

She nodded, because she couldn't think of anything else to do, and pressed her lips into a tight line in order to stop herself from asking where he had his hand bruised. They looked pink and fresh and she would have wanted to show him to the nearest hospital, but she figured it would have been rather stupid thing to say to a complete stranger.

Instead, she walked back to the counter, reached for the coffee pot and a glass. She moved to the small glass-door fridge and picked up a water pitcher and poured the glass full of ice cold water. She brought the coffee pot and the glass of iced water back to the table and smiled to him.

He thanked her, his voice now low and slightly raspy.

Yes, he had very nice and friendly eyes, his voice low and inviting. She bit her lip and ignored the tingle in her spine. She forced herself to walk away. She stepped back and just nodded as a reply to his 'thank you'.

 _Fighters weren't lovers. Fighters weren't even good company in the end._ She had to remind herself with that.

But, he looked after her; she felt those friendly eyes on her back. Friendly eyes. Friendlier eyes.

She got back behind the counter and served two extra cups of coffee to two other customers.

He sat there and ate slowly, twirling the fork in his food, poking a piece of bacon around.

She stood behind the counter, flicked through the morning paper and every now and then handing off the bills and whatever the customers wanted. She felt terribly shocked when she realized she was looking at him every now and then, and she scolded herself for it. Yes, the guy looked good, but nobody needed to tell it to her - it was stupidity to even think about what she was thinking currently and she had to scold herself about it.

She saw him glance at the big clock on the diner's wall, and reach for his cell phone next. He twiddled with it for a moment, as if trying to and make a decision that wasn't easy. Maybe he had a family and he had to tell them that he couldn't get a job at the mill because it was closed.

Rose shook her head; she needed to quit imagining other people's lives. Nevertheless, instead of concentrating on her job, she continued to steal glances of this man, and watching him check the cell phone every two minutes and expecting to find a new message. She too was almost disappointed when he pocketed the damn thing.

A moment later, she and him both heard the phone chime in his pocket and he sighed out of relief and reached for the phone again. His face didn't show any emotions when he read the message, but she noticed his anxiousness spike; his foot bounced and his fingers thrummed against the table.

The man didn't react any more than that. He finished his breakfast, like no message had interrupted him.

She heard Herb, one of the regulars and the manager of the gas station, stand up and walk over to the counter. She sighed in resignation and walked to meet him, telling him how much his total was and asking if he needed anything else. She smiled at him, and exchanged some pleasantries, even played coy with him when he told her that she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen and if he was a younger man he'd sweep her off her feet and marry her. Old platitudes for sure, but Herb was well over seventy and still sharp as a tack.

When she was done with Herb, she caught herself yet again, checking at her Tall-Dark-And-Handsome. He had stood up, was reaching of his wallet, and paid for the food and the coffee. He was a definite specimen of a fighter, with his narrow hips, slender waist, and yet enough muscles to hold his own.

He walked past her, not paying her any attention, even though she smiled at him, a timid smile of her own, and wanted to ask him if he wanted anything else. She didn't even know why she felt so disappointed when he had not noticed her on his way out. As soon, as the door closed after him, she breathed out and realized that she had held her breath a good full minute. Quickly looking around her, she thanked her guardian angel, or whatever deity that might have been, that no one had seen that, and observed through the window, as the man walked to his car. Only when he was already sitting inside of his truck did she hurry to clean up the table.

And there, right next to the payment for the breakfast, was a $20 bill. She gasped, looked out of the window after him; watched him back away from the parking lot, turn his car around and drive off completely clueless that she was watching for him to leave. She held the $20 bill in her hands and stared at it. She shivered, when she figured that her thought about him counting dimes wasn't accurate; that either he had not counted them after all, or he had given her most of his next meal ticket.

She hoped she was wrong about the man, though.

~::~

He saw her reflection in the window, where the sunlight and the shadows melted into a perfect reflecting surface. She shook her head, and turned to leave, but he couldn't let her go. He had allowed her to leave once, and it had nearly killed him. It would have, if he hadn't turned himself into stone.

He swiveled his head to watch her leave, every fiber of his being lurching into action. He reached over, grabbed her arm as gently as he possibly could but he knew in the back of his mind that he was holding on too hard. She let out a sound of a protest, but he couldn't let go of her. His fingers felt the softness and warmth of her skin, her wrist far too slender in his hold, almost too frail and ready to break like the bones of a small bird.

As she turned around, he saw better her baby blue uniform, white apron, and white shoes. A different color scheme and this could have been back in the Grady Memorial, where he saw her the last time.

His eyes shifted down, seeing her name tag, he saw it read " _Rose"_ and he knew beyond every evidence laid out in front of him, at his own trial, that his 'rose', his Beth, was dead.

But the woman in front of him, the waitress of this small-town diner, was too much of a lookalike to not to be her.

It didn't make any sense. It was beyond everything that he had been told time and time again, and yet… and yet here he was, sent to kill two people because they were witnesses in a case against the man that had hired him to do his dirty work.

It quickly dawned on him. He realized that the last five years had been an intricate lie, and he was just a damn pawn in the game and circus that these people kept rolling.

Daryl's eyes traveled up her pale arm, from where he was holding onto her. His gaze met the short sleeve with a white cuff and the slender neck, a golden chain with a small cross hanging from it, the blonde curls that descended down onto her shoulder now that her ponytail was slightly askew, and finally, her pink lips, parted in a startled gasp, her blue eyes wide from nothing else but shock.

His eyes must have mirrored hers.

They stared at each other for a while; seconds that felt like minutes.

Her emotions were colored on her face, surprise and fear, her cheeks flushed and her eyes reflecting disbelief. He winced back, because even if she was the same girl, even if this was his 'rose', she didn't seem to remember him.

He let go of her arm, yanked his own hand back quickly, as if her skin had burned his fingers. It sure felt like it had. His fingers ached and he tried to flex them few times.

"B-Beth?" he whispered, barely audible and he knew she wouldn't be able to catch that. He watched her tilt her head, trying to understand what he had mumbled, but he couldn't say it again. Either this was the worst joke on him orchestrated by the universe or this was really Beth, who had survived even though he was accused of her death, and she clearly suffered from amnesia. It seemed understandable, almost acceptable right now, even though he was still too shocked and his thoughts ran through his mind too fast to grasp a hold of any of them.

She winced too, pulling her arm to her chest and cradling it like an injury. Then, he saw the familiar questioning look spread on her face, and he knew she was about to ask him something. He shook his head and turned away.

"'m sorry about - -," he mumbled, stopped and gestured vaguely towards her arm, hoping that he had not in fact hurt her.

She looked like she was ready to bolt and he wasn't too far behind her.

"I-It's fine," she mumbled and waved her hand. She smiled weakly as she spoke and he wanted to tell her he would never hurt her, but of course he couldn't say a word. Instead of a big reveal and a teary confession, he cleared his throat, and asked for another cup of coffee and some cold water.

And, yet again, she turned to leave, and this time, Daryl let her.

~::~

He walked out of the diner in a confused, fearful haze.

His legs felt shaky, like Jell-O, and his hands trembled, and his stomach tightened, making him feel queasy like always when it came to her, and he made a beeline for his truck.

As he sat behind the wheel, he yanked the door shut forcefully, and slammed his fists against the steering wheel. His knuckles reddened immediately. He felt his heart beating in his chest, thrumming in a panicked tempo, and he could feel a lump in his throat as he struggled to calm himself down.

Everything hurt, like it was physical pain, but in reality it was nothing but mental pain, torture of the worst kind.

The waitress in the diner, Rose as the name tag had read, just could not be her. She couldn't be her, because the woman he had loved, and still did, was dead, and he had seen her being shot to the head.

Daryl rubbed his palm on his face, and brushed his hair off his face. He tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling of the car, feeling the faint panic and anxiety building up inside of him. His breathing grew faster and his stomach dropped, flipped and got tangled inside of him.

Logic and the ugliness of reality clashed with the feeble hope and dreams of his mind.

He knew, of course, that people could survive a gunshot wound to the head. There had been hundreds of cases like that. He couldn't argue with the reality and statistics. There was no question about it; it wasn't a fitful dream, or attempt of torture from his self loathing mind.

The woman inside he had grabbed by her arm was definitely Beth Greene.

She was the same woman he loved, the same one who had been shot right in front of his eyes, and who had been declared dead after several hours of surgeries and eventual resuscitation attempts.

He felt numb.

He looked down at his hand, the skin felt cold and hot at the same time, it felt like he had been burned.

She was real and he had touched her.

His stomach lurched again, and made him reach for the keys in his pocket. They jingled as he yanked them out and inserted the key into the ignition. He couldn't do this here, he needed to get away from the parking lot, and into a slightly more secluded area. His heart felt cold as he listened his truck to come to life and the rumble of the engine; because there was no way this job was purely coincidental.

He sped off the parking lot, leaving the sound of screeching tires and the darkened tracks on the asphalt.

He drove down the road for good ten minutes, trying his best to sort his thoughts into something resembling coherence, but it too, seemed to be impossible, another one of those impossibilities of his day.

Since it was still early, and the town was small, there were no cars around. He thanked that miserable luck of his and swerved to the shoulder of the road.

As the car came to a halt, he squeezed his hands into tight fists around the steering wheel, watching his knuckles turn white in an instant. He felt the skin of his palms wringing against the vinyl of the wheel and reveled in the pain for a moment, still gritting his teeth together.

"Jesusfuck!" he shouted out loud, squeezing the wheel one last time, and then ripping his grip off like a bandaid. His palms were red, sore and tender.

No. None of this was a coincidence.

He couldn't help but wonder how deep all this shit went.

He had been a damn good soldier. He had been a fine police officer and a detective. He had been good at his job!

All the hours of preparing, all the times he'd been on the field chasing down a lead with or without his partner, and all the times they had crashed into a brick wall. They had worked over that one last case for four years, tracking down every single piece of evidence there was to find. And now, he was hired by a man with connections to organized crime and court case coming up, and he was sent to this particular small town to kill the woman he loved and her father.

Instantly feeling guilty about that night he had suffered the most and accused of his partner of throwing him to the sharks when they had come to arrest him, after Beth had died. No, after she had been shot, and allegedly died on the operating table.

This was about the dirty cops they had finally tracked down, and arrested at Grady Memorial. This was about the man that was behind those dirty cops, the big fish, the one they had never caught even though they had come close once or twice. On both occasions, their witnesses had ended up dead.

And most importantly, this was about what had occurred after the arrests, after Daryl had shot the female officer for shooting Beth.

At that very moment, sitting in his car, he had trouble breathing and organizing his thoughts into something he could grasp, or comprehend.

He would have to figure this out. He would have to pull open all the wounds that had been closed for so long and he would have to at least try and make amends with his old partner and - - even worse, with the people he'd had in his life before.


	3. Secrecy the Instrument of Conspiracy

He kept sitting still in the car for what seemed like forever.

The heavy feeling on his chest made his breathing labored. It was too hard to try and wrap his mind around the events at the diner, and try to understand what was going on.

He hadn't been born under lucky stars, he knew that much, but he had tried to better his life ever since he could remember. He had been a reckless and wild teenager, but after Merle had enlisted into the Army, it had forced Daryl to consider his options.

He'd bent over backwards to get his high school diploma and enlisted at 18 as soon as he was out of high school, and out of the house that he had been forced to live, and to call home.

Instead of the Army, though, he had chosen the Marines. He had been a good at it, he'd served well, and finally volunteered into Scout Sniper training. That had brought him into active war zones, with his spotter, and he had seen more than his share of battles.

He had been in service for twelve years, and after that time he was honorably discharged, full benefits and all. Knowing he wouldn't be able to do much with his Marine training, he had went on to become a police officer in Atlanta. A career choice he had been wondering several times after that, and not only because of his family's blatant discouragement.

Merle had practically choked while laughing, while holding a bag of methamphetamine he was pushing around the town. His poor excuse of a father had thrown a case of beer at him, which Daryl had averted easily. Despite of this, and his dumb ass relatives, he had followed that path without any regrets.

He had made a detective in two years. His only regret came then, when he was partnered with Rick Grimes. They both were from the same small town, and Daryl hadn't expected to be partners with someone who was that much intimate knowledge about the notoriety of the Dixons. Rick's father, the Sheriff of that town, had been over at the Dixon house too many times. So, it had taken Daryl for almost a year to start trusting him. In the end Rick proved to be far better person than most of the other people living in that town. Rick hadn't held any of the infamy of Will Dixon against Daryl.

After the trust issues at the beginning of their run, they'd had a pretty decent thing going on between the two of them.

They had worked homicide. Sometimes their cases had taken them over the department lines to burglary, narcotics and even vice. As a matter of fact, they had received an honorable mention after solving one particularly nasty human trafficking case. They both had been injured at duty that day, Daryl more than Rick. Later on, while trying to solve a murder of an informant, they had stumbled onto the case of dirty cops, and someone in the government of the State of Georgia pulling the strings.

He had been hotheaded, and his recklessness had calmed down a notch when she had entered his life out of the blue. But in reality, she had been the best thing ever to happen to him.

He glances at the diner through the rear view mirror. He had always known she was his soft spot. He would have given her the world if it was his to give.

But he had always known she was his destruction, his downfall.

He hadn't been too far from that notion. Her death had been his destruction on every level of his life.

He could see the irony in the matter, if it had not been so tragicomical.

After the shooting, they had placed him on sick leave, then on desk duty. After the IAD had gone through the evidence and the testimonies of witnesses, he was arrested. Over the course of one year he'd seen more the walls of the courthouse than anything else.

He had been told a million times that Beth was dead. She was dead and he was alive and he was paying it off because it was his fault. He growled and slammed his fists against the roof of the car, feeling the pain grate on his nerves at the aching contact.

She was dead, and he should fucking know that as a fact.

But at that very moment, sitting in his car, he had trouble breathing, because the blonde-haired woman in the diner was not anyone else but Beth.

He reached for his phone, and stared at the screen for ages.

When he was contacted and then hired to do this job, he had asked for the vital information he would need. Most of the things he worked with went through smoothly, information was given, he did his job and he got paid. With this, he had only received half truths, straight out lies and empty promises. All of that only added to his suspicions, but the job paid more than triple of what he had asked, and it made him ignore the the gnawing feeling in his gut.

But, he would have recognized her immediately, if they had sent him her picture. There was no question about it. They had opted not to give him all or enough info so he wouldn't know what he was agreeing to do, and therefore no other choice but to accept the job.

And this is where it had lead him.

No matter what he would do, he would be fucked.

Quickly becoming frustrated with his own mental state, he twirled the phone between thumb and forefinger once, and with a flick of his wrist and a swipe he brought his phone into action. He had no contact information saved on the phone, or on the sim card. He had three or four numbers he had memorized, and since he kept changing phones every once in a while he rather used his memory than the memory of the phone where it was way too easy to pick them up. He tapped in the number from memory once again, and pressed the call button with his thumb. Taking a deep sigh he brought the device onto his ear, looking around as if expecting someone to snoop around and eavesdrop.

It rang a long time. After eight or ninth rings, he was finally answered.

He recognized the voice answering but gave it less than an inkling of a thought. He didn't want to talk with the hired help.

"'s me, gotta talk to ya boss," he growled at the person who had graced him by answering.

Daryl rolled his eyes, and felt his blood pressure spike, when the man on the other end began mumbling and list excuses why he couldn't talk to the man in charge quite yet.

"Don't give a flying fuck, butler, get him on the phone. NOW!"

It made him rather gleeful when the person he had been talking to stopped his babbling and stammered something before storming off to find his employer. Seconds ticked away and Daryl waited for some kind of interaction from the other end of the line. When it finally came, he was already annoyed beyond belief.

"Mr. Dixon," the man Daryl had been waiting for started.

"Cut the shit," he growled, "Ain't gonna wanna spend the rest of my fuckin' life in this backwater town, give me the info I need," he hissed, his voice gruff and angry.

He decided then and there that he needed to play his part this way to this baboon of a man to get more time to plan his next move.

"Calm down, boy," the other man drawled a reply with his southern accent, his voice oozing with deceitful calmness. Daryl chewed the inside of his cheek to subdue his instinct to lash out at him.

He didn't like the man on the other end of the line, not even when he was the one to sign off on his payment, and he liked him even less right now. He was onto his plan and he was gonna rip him a new one once he had confirmed it.

"Ain't your boy," Daryl hissed, spitting out his words like they were pure venom.

The man was silent for a moment. Daryl said nothing, because he refused to be jerked around like a dummy. Then, the man started to laugh.

It took few moments for him to stop and when he did, he chuckled, " Alright, Mr. Dixon," sounding condescending, through gritted teeth. He could hear the other man's irritation, and most of all the anger towards how he was behaving, but Daryl wasn't about to become his bitch.

"I will have the information sent to you," he said, his voice deceitfully calm, "My assistant has encrypted the files. I do hope you know how to decrypt it. I believe I can count on your discretion on the subject? I would hate to have to call the Feds to spoil this little road show."

It was a thinly veiled threat, and Daryl recognized it easily. He scoffed, clutching the phone.

"Better watch your mouth, Sunshine," he growled, flipping open the laptop he had on the front seat, and typing in his password. He saw the encrypted file that was waiting for him to decrypt it.

The man chuckled, and he could hear rustling before the man spoke again, "You're doing this job for me, Dixon, or you will take the place as the target. I don't care what you find in those files. You and I have a contract, and I hired you because you are the best. I believe a rumor saying you _were_ the best wouldn't be profitable."

"Fuck you," he barked, "'m in position, just need to get the faces into my scope. 'M gonna check the balance of my account before I'll pull the trigger," Daryl hissed, making his own thinly veiled threat at the man.

The man laughed again, and Daryl bit his cheek. He didn't want to say anything to the douchebag and make him even angrier.

"I'm going to make the arrangements to transfer the money to you, today. How does that sound, Mr. Dixon?"

"Better."

Daryl ended the call quickly because he had no energy to talk to this man anymore. He was almost certain he wouldn't ever get the money. Making a mental note to check his account and the possibility of transferring the money to a different place, his attention was quickly fully drawn onto the screen of his laptop.

He ran the message through few of the best antivirus softwares on the market, then he went on to check the message through a software that detected possible tracking, and scoffed when it found three.

"Typical," he grumbled.

Not wanting to give away his location because of those trackers, he cleaned the file once more, and then let the decryption program run through with it before he opened it.

The pages opened into the program in a neat pile of several separate documents. He began browsing through the information, as the words melted into each other and his eyes jumping from line to line and darting between words here and there. He flipped several court documents aside, barely focusing on the words. At first it was just that, pages and pages full of text and he didn't want to read through it all.

But finally at the end, there it was.

Daryl's gut flipped.

The last file contained the documents he was looking for.

They were the WITSEC papers he was dreading to find.

" _Subject: Hershel Howard Greene, subject: Elizabeth Anne Greene_ ," he read out loud, confirming it undeniably that she was alive.

She had been given a new name, new identity, new profession, a new life, along with her father.

Daryl paused for a moment, trying to figure out why Hershel had entered the program as well. The thought was shoved in the back when he found more information about Beth.

Medical records attached to the WITSEC files revealed after reading that she was suffering from retrograde amnesia due to the shooting. He had been right about her having an amnesia. She would have never not recognized him, even if she was given a new identity and new life, even if she was told not to contact him.

The attending doctors had suggested she would quite possibly make a full recovery if she was introduced to the right stimuli of familiar things from her past.

 _Why the fuck they shipped her across the country then, and into witness protection program?_

He groaned again, and kept reading. If she was an important witness to something, she was useless if she didn't remember what she was a witness to.

 _What did she see?_

She had been in that hospital room for ten, fifteen minutes. It was most definitely the first time she had met the dirty cops Daryl and Rick had been after. Had she heard or seen something while cleaning Lerner's wound? When Daryl nor Rick hadn't been in the room with them?

As a purely instinctual thing, he glanced up and checked that he was still alone on that stretch of a road.

The medical records were eventually just a bunch of jargon he didn't have the concentration to read through completely. He moved back to the WITSEC files. Skimming over the information about the entire Greene family, and the accident report of her shooting. He lived through that every night, he didn't need to read the police files about it.

But even so, the police records, and the FBI and US Marshals' records seemed a bit light, as if information had been redacted for some reason. Unfortunately he could think of the reason why that was. All the courses he'd taken at college, and tedious lectures of his professors had put that information in his brain for good.

He dropped the laptop onto the seat, as he reached the end of the final page and felt exasperated, out of breath, exhausted both emotionally and physically.

If he had thought of something when accepting this job, this wasn't it. This wasn't what anyone would have expected if being put in this same situation.

This was much bigger than him and Beth.

His life had been shattered, and he had been convicted of a crime that would have been justified in the court of law, if it had been an honest one. Bringing his thumb to his lips, he began gnawing the fingernail in earnest. It made him think if it had actually been a real trial, or had they just thrown him under the train to have a fake conclusion to a case in order to - - have what exactly?

What could she have possibly known that made them force witness protection on her, and not allow her to regain her memories?

She had been thrown in the middle of this without a reason, and they had robbed her her life.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. Getting the files had raised more questions than answers. 8000 pages of information and no answers were given.

And what was even more hilarious, he was now expected to get rid of them both. In other words, the man who had hired him expected him to kill her; again.

~::~

"Sheriff Rick Grimes," his former partner answered the phone. His voice seemed older, rougher, tired even.

Of course, it had been few years since he had last seen him, the man had aged as much as he had.

When he had been arrested, and later sentenced, Rick had been suspended from his position as a detective.

They had investigated him as well, accused him of being a dirty cop, same they had done to Daryl. If Daryl was a dirty cop, then Rick was an angel of a cop. The man used to be such a stickler for rules.

If there had been anything else in Rick's childhood he had wanted to be, other than being a cop, he would have most likely chosen one of them as a new path. But he had grown up as the son of a Sheriff and the only thing he had ever wanted or known was how to be a cop.

It didn't sit well with Daryl that he had been the reason Rick had been suspended and later, let go.

At the time of the suspension, he had still been married to Lori, his high school sweetheart, and they had a son together. It had been Rick's job to keep a roof on top of their heads and food on their table despite Lori working at the kindergarten. Losing steady income of his was devastating.

He had resigned, and as per the deal he had taken, gotten out of the situation nearly unscathed. His name was scrubbed from Daryl's case, and he had only been reprimanded over some bullshit reason the brass had made up concerning the hospital arrest.

He had taken his chances, and moved back to his hometown, down the road of ways from the big city, and he had made a deputy at first. In all honesty, Rick Grimes was good at his job whether it was a deputy or a detective, because of that, he was honest.

A year into Daryl's sentence, amidst fighting against some of the other inmates and keep himself alive, he had still kept tabs on his former partner. He had gotten updates of him from Merle who visited him once a month. He'd told Daryl that Rick and Lori had divorced as amicably as possible.

He couldn't help but think it was inevitable, after all the changes that had happened to them.

Rick and Lori had shared the custody of their son, Carl, and remained friends. She had remarried later with a teacher from the same school she now worked and they'd had a baby later on.

Another year later, when Daryl had been released from the prison, and living in a crummy halfway house that had been assigned to him for the first month of freedom, he had found out that Rick was dating some hot shot lawyer from Atlanta named Michonne.

He was actually quite happy that Rick's life hadn't gone down the drain because he had fucked up royally.

Two years later, as Rick was elected as the new Sheriff of Orchard Hill, he had married Michonne during a spring wedding with a freak snowstorm sending the newlyweds and the guests rampaging indoors. He was busting his ass now in that town, helping neighboring counties and small towns whenever he could and tried to do his best to raise Carl right.

The way Merle had painted those news for him, Daryl wouldn't be too surprised if he and Michonne would start a family of their own soon.

But still, he shouldn't have called to Rick; he had no right to do so.

He had done so much already. It had been Rick who had taken his gun away, and tried to console him when Beth had laid on the floor bleeding and nurses and doctors sprung into action, running past him and trying to stop the bleeding. It was Rick who had dragged him away from that small room to the waiting room. And it was Rick at the end of the day who had escorted him into the squad car, and into the police station and eventually into the interrogation room.

He had waited there for all the hours, and Rick had driven him home after hours of being questioned about the incident, and it was Rick who had stayed with him that night, and tried to help him cope with the loss and the nightmares he had seen that night after so many nights without.

Eventually, it had been Rick who had come at the door of his house to arrest him when the brass had made the call.

He knew he owed Rick a million favors, but Rick owed this one for him. Rick owed it to Beth, and her family, to help him out with this one.

Still, Daryl was certain that he was probably the last person on this planet Rick wanted to talk to. But he'd go through hell and then some all over again if it meant he could save Beth now.

"Hello?" Rick called out after the line had been silent for a moment.

"Sheriff Grimes," he drawled, scoffing at the end, as he finally spoke.

"Daryl?"

~::~

He stood by the window, staring outside with his hands in his pockets. Dark blue, pinstripe pants, and a crisp white shirt, with a flaming red tie and black suspenders that were a drastic contrast against the color of his shirt. The room was otherwise dark, the only light allowed in was streaming through the sheer fabric of the curtains draped on the high arched windows.

He had a glare of distaste on his face as he kept looking at the yard of the Governor's Mansion, his official residence, and subsequently, his office as well. The entire lawn of the Mansion was crowded with people hustling and bustling around, carrying white folding chairs, bouquets of flower and draping white tulle everywhere.

He sneered.

And _he_ was to pay from all of this idiocy, this charade, that seemed to occur on his lawn at that very moment.

"Sir?"

The door behind him opened and a pale man with sandy blonde hair and glasses entered the office, tiptoeing nervously closer to him.

"Yes?" he enquired without turning around, his expression never changing, and keeping his eyes on the yard where he still watched several people scurrying around and about.

"Y-Your wife says the flowers have arrived and she needs the… the answer on the photographer soon," the pasty man at the door wheezed. He glanced at the large mahogany desk and noticed all the resumes of the photographers still spread all over it. A glass with melting cubes of ice sat abandoned near the keyboard of his computer and the golden hue at the bottom of the glass told him of its former contents.

"Just pick one, Milton, I'm sure you can choose one on your own. They are all high-priced and high-praised photographers, they all can probably point and shoot. And yes, I can see the flowers have arrived. Clearly, I am not blind," he said with clear aversion in his tone, before he scoffed and added, "Is the Moron here already?"

"N-No, Sir, he is on his way, though."

"I don't want him anywhere near Poppy's room; put him in the guest house. Don't care if they have done it like rabbits already, they aren't touching each other until that wretched preacher says 'amen'. And tell Penny not to aggravate her sister."

It wasn't said in a tone of a command, but it was an order, one that was not to be disobeyed.

The wedding of Poppy Blake and Cesar Martinez had Governor Blake on the edge, and grouchy to the point of volatile anger, mostly because the man had an inexplicable dislike towards the groom, whom he had introduced to his eldest daughter himself.

It was Milton, his personal aide, who was getting the brunt of his anger. Although Milton Mamet didn't mind his boss' tantrums, he couldn't help but wonder how this situation had evolved into this point.

Despite the wedding was to take place in a week's time, the wedding organizer had already taken control of the yard and most of the first floor, including the kitchen. There were only two things that had been needing Governor Blake's input, one of them was to pick the photographer, and the other, to write a some kind of a speech where he would praise his daughter and her future husband. Easier said than done.

"Yes, Sir," Milton said quickly and scribbled something down onto his files.

"And remember to notify me which one you picked, when you've decided," Blake said calmly. Milton nodded, as he scribbled something again to his papers.

"Anything else?" Governor asked, glancing at him from the corner of his eye, turning his head just enough to see the nervous and twitchy man squirm, which he enjoyed tremendously.

"Ah, yes, Sir, there's... there's the matter of… _him_ ," the pasty-face, Milton, said, "He's still waiting outside."

"Ah yes, our friend. Let him in," the man by the window said with a grin ghosting on his lips.

"He'll see you know, Mr. Dixon," Milton said, opening the door, and let in a man with clearly a chip on his shoulder.

The man was in his fifties, bald head, greying stubble on his cheeks and chin, permanent scowl on his face and wearing scuffed jeans, heavy leather boots, and a dark green pilot jacket.

Along with the Governor's personal bodyguards on his payroll, Merle Dixon was the only man allowed to carry a weapon inside the Governor's Mansion. There was a heavy type of leather shoulder harness underneath his jacket, and on it were two loaded Glocks in the holsters.

Not that Governor Blake trusted the man with his life, but since this man was the only one in charge of the much seedier and illegal businesses of his, he had established that it would be eventually far more disadvantageous not to allow Merle Dixon to carry a gun.

"Yes, Mr. Dixon, come on in," Governor Blake said, and turned around, finally, gesturing at the chairs that were placed in front of his desk.

"What do you want now?" the man barked and crossed his arms to his chest, staring at the Governor defiantly.

A disgruntled gun-for-hire like Merle would have scared anyone else, but not Governor Blake. He knew Merle's bite was just about as effectively as a bark of a tied off watchdog.

"Come now, I believe we can still at least try to be civil with each other," he said in a condescending tone, chuckling a little, and then pulling his own large, leather chair so he could sit down comfortably.

Merle scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"You are a bodyguard, you take care of the… delicate parts of my interests, and therefore you are my most trusted man, Mr. Dixon," Governor Blake continued, his eyes boring into Merle's eyes. He enjoyed it when he saw that the older Dixon brother did not believe a word he had just uttered, and smirked when he noticed that he had also heard the spite in his voice.

"You have me by the balls," Merle Dixon growled again, and shifted in his place, "Tha's the only reason 'm doing your biddin', and the only reason ya is worth to me alive. And the only reason my baby brother's on this wild goose chase of yours."

"I believe you have that wrong, Merle, ol' boy," Blake smirked, almost gloating, "Daryl is doing, what he's doing, because he's the best, isn't he?" he egged on, making Merle scowl and him chuckle maliciously again.

"And you, my friend, you have practically handed your balls to me on a silver platter! I know about _your_ illegal activities, I know about the drugs and the booze. I know, and I _could_ have you arrested. I'm sure the police would love to piece in all the deeds you've done just to get few cold cases off their hands."

He remained silent for a moment, just to see Merle Dixon scowl poisonously.

"So, because your little brother is the best sniper and the best mercenary everyone recommended to me, he _will_ do his job. And if he doesn't do as ordered, by me, you and him both will take a long dirt nap, and perhaps someone will find your remains in the next twenty years!"

His voice began calm and collected, but he soon started shouting at Merle. He on the other hand wasn't wasn't moved by the shouting at all.

"Unless you would love to spend the rest of your earthly life in a six by six jail cell in solitary confinement?" Governor Blake asked then, in a condescending tone.

That on the other hand made Merle swallow; something of a clear indication he was getting nervous.

The man had very few weaknesses, a reason that made him an excellent bodyguard and a criminal. His weakness was the possibility of going to prison for life, something he had sworn never to do again. His ultimate weakness, though, was his younger brother, and he would rather die than let his brother take the fall.

Someone growing up practically a mountain man wouldn't fare too well in solitary confinement. All in all, just to help his little brother, the bastard would obey Blake's smallest whims with a snap of his fingers.

The Governor kept watching at the older Dixon brother as he chewed his bottom lip before sneering at him.

"The boy didn't even know about the girl and her father until you sent him at them. Bet he knows about them now,," he argued back at his employer.

"Yes, it's such a shame, isn't it? He should find someone else eventually."

He stared at the Governor with anger flaming in his eyes, but he knew better than to attack. He would have done that to anyone else, but the Governor of the State of Georgia wasn't to be trifled with. He was a powerful man, and dabbled in with some rather gruesome and shady affairs.

Even as a bodyguard and something of a head of his criminal underlings, Merle knew better indeed.

"Anyway, there is more to this than just your lives. All the more reason to see if he is really loyal. I know he's the best at finding people, breaking their arms and legs, busting kneecaps, even end few meaningless lives here and there, but - - is he loyal enough to get rid of this tiny blonde problem for me and make sure, that the charges against Gorman, O'Donnell, Licari and Shepard will go away? I want my men, and woman, back. And I want a payback, my revenge, at what happened to Dawn."

Merle said nothing. He recognized crazy when he saw it, and the Governor of Georgia seemed to be a bucket full of all sorts of crazy. If he was to bite the dust as well along with this crazy head, he wanted Daryl to be left outside of any of his schemes. His baby brother didn't belong in a jail cell. He'd come too far from where they had both lived.

"She is already the reason my best officer was killed," he said, almost reverently, sadness creeping through his otherwise crude words, "I won't let her stand in the way of my plans!"

"After _she_ shot the girl."

"Dawn was important to me!" the Governor roared, standing up, his fist slamming against the desk.

Merle didn't flinch, nor did he cower back.

He knew this man had a bigger bark than bite. Obviously he had money and power, and he could get rid of his adversaries from left and right, but he was just a man. Merle Dixon did not fear men, because right now, he had the feeling that this vendetta of his was more about the woman who was shot by Daryl than it was about having his crew freed.

"He'll get the job done," Merle hissed, "He knows what's at the stake."

"Your head," Blake replied, grinning, well knowing that he had kept both Merle and Daryl Dixon in the dark about this situation.

Merle's scowl made him chuckle yet again. Daryl had presented himself as a mercenary, a gun for hire to the highest bidder. He was recommended by certain factions he was acquainted with. And as such, a mercenary, he had sent him after the witness and her father. In all honesty, he didn't fit the bill of an assassin or a murderer, and maybe he wasn't one, but more of an enforcer - breaking knees and fingers for debt collecting and such - but it had been enough to use against his older brother. He had bullied Merle easily to obey his every whim, under the pretense of giving up Daryl's shady business to the law if he stepped out of the line. It seemed to be working, as the older brother wanted to protect his 'baby brother'.

Merle excused himself, with a scowl and a disdain written on his face, exiting the large office, and Governor Blake stood up once more, walking to the window. From the corner of his eyes he saw his ever present bodyguard Negan digging the underside of his nails with a large hunting knife.

"Send in the rest. I want this problem solved once and for all," Governor Blake said, his voice steady and calm.

"How do you want it to be handled, Sir?" Negan asked, grinning.

"Kill them all."

He had his own ideas, his own plans, he intended to see through, and it didn't particularly involve obstacles like blonde haired witnesses, or lovesick puppy boyfriends, who happened to be former police detectives.

At this point of all things, Governor Blake saw no flaws in his plans.

~::~

It wasn't easy to track down and dig out all the evidence related to the original case concerning the incident at Grady Memorial. Daryl was tried for negligent homicide, for his part in Beth's death, and it still rubbed Rick the wrong way when ever he briefly thought of it, let alone now as he seemed to wade hip deep in boxes upon boxes of reports, pictures and physical evidence.

He had hounded several people to get what he wanted, and he had nearly cracked his back when he was carrying the boxes from his car into his dining room.

He sat by the dining room table, flipping through a particularly thick file papers and yawned. He rubbed his weary eyes, trying to get rid of the itchy feeling of sand behind his eyelids, before he resumed the reading.

"Rick?" Michonne's gentle voice called from the doorway. He hadn't heard her descend down the stairs, or creep up to the dining room door.

He had barely enough energy to look up from the papers and sigh so deep that it would have evoked empathy from anyone in the world.

"Yeah, I know," he grumbled, waving his hand to the general direction of Michonne. He wasn't ready to admit defeat to sleep.

"You need to sleep too," she chided crossing her arms and tilting her head just slightly and then smiling at the stubborn man that he was. She made her way to the table, the satin, blue robe with a pale pink belt fluttered around her legs.

"Yeah, I know, babe, but I just… I gotta get someone from the Bureau on the line for me. None of this makes any sense!" he said, nodding at her.

Rick groaned and shoved the papers, making them slide over the laptop.

"I don't think half of these papers have anything to do with Daryl's case!" he added, as Michonne sat down next to him.

"What did Daryl tell you when he called?" she questioned, and Rick could swear on his father's life that he heard pique of interest in her voice. He chastised himself quickly for telling her about Daryl's sudden phone call.

He had met her when he had tried to find someone to appeal for Daryl's case.

Michonne Anthony was a tough as nails corporate and criminal justice lawyer, not really specialized into appeals, and Rick wasn't sure why she had shown interest in Daryl's situation. She had been willing to travel to the prison to meet Daryl, but Rick hadn't taken account Daryl Dixon's unwillingness to ask for help. He didn't want to see her, nor him, in the prison. Afterwards, when Daryl was released he had lost track of him.

Rick hadn't told Michonne about all the details of the phone call, but he had been unable to feign that everything was alright afterwards. She could read him like an open book, and he could hardly lie to her.

"Look, uh - - Babe, I would tell you, but…," Rick began with a haphazard excuse, not really knowing how to excuse or what he should excuse of; Daryl's phone call, or what he had to say.

She pursed her lips, reaching for the papers absentmindedly and began collecting them into neat piles. He saw how her brows arched dangerously, and Rick was certain she would give him a lecture about the attorney/client privilege. On the other hand, she was not Daryl's attorney.

When she didn't say anything, Rick raised his gaze to look at his wife, the love of his life, and saw her totally engrossed to reading a file in her hands.

It made Rick wince a little, and clear his throat to get her attention.

"Who was his lawyer?" she snapped angrily.

"Uh… I don't know. I don't remember his name," Rick stammered.

"And all these files are supposedly about this case?" she inquired.

"Yes. About Daryl's case and the investigation concerning the dirty cops and also the shooting, the victims, Beth Greene and Dawn Lerner," Rick answered in earnest.

"You were so right, Rick," she said, staring at him dead in the eye, "None of this makes any sense. Here's a statement from an eyewitness who says they were _outside_ the Grady Memorial at that time. This is a report of the issued weapons and the ballistics, from every gun except for what Daryl used and what this other woman… Officer Dawn Lerner, was using. This is gross negligence from everyone involved with the investigation!"

"Uh, you weren't supposed to see that," Rick mumbled, and tried not to look sheepish.

Michonne frowned, but remained quiet. Rick's gut churned a little, and he knew well enough that she would squeeze the truth out of him one way or the other. He squirmed in his seat, and thought he wanted to gather just a little bit more evidence, just a little bit more hard facts, and he wanted to talk to the FBI before he would give in and tell her. That is, if he was ever to get anyone from the FBI on the phone with him.

"Michy," Rick started gently. He reached over to take her hands into his, and pulling the papers away from her. She remained silent, only arching her brow a little at Rick. Scooting closer, he wanted to make amends without telling the whole truth at this juncture.

"Michonne, Babe, I promise, that I will tell you, just as soon as I have talked with someone at the Bureau. And… And if this thing is headed to where I think it might be, and if it is what I think it might also have been from the get go, I'm gonna need you more than I have ever needed you in my life. Personally, and professionally," Rick poured out the words in a rushed tone.

Michonne raised her eyebrow once again, her lips still pursed into a tight line.

She was used to Rick not telling her about all the work related issues he had, but she wasn't used to him hiding things from the past, because they pretty much had all of it laid out in the open.

He'd come over and tell her about the issues later, when he was good and ready, when there was a big break in the case or when it was already processed, reported and closed. One of her favorite things was how he told about the goofy incidents they had come across with during the day.

But, this? This was something new.

The poor bastard looked nervous and absolutely panicked and she decided to give him a break.

"Professionally, too?" she queried, "Ooh, take me now, sailor!" she said, exaggerating the drama in her voice.

Rick chuckled, letting his hand trail up the side of her satin covered thigh.

"Sir, I believe you are trying to be frisky with me," she whispered, and slapped his hand playfully away.

"Yeah," Rick mumbled, with a smile, "This fucking case… it's just killing me after all these years. I deserve some love!"

She burst into an earnest laughter and stood up, quickly giving a kiss on Rick's forehead.

"We'll see what you deserve and what you don't," she chuckled, but then continued with a straight face, "I am going to wait for whatever it is that this case is about. Just give me more than 20 minutes to get myself ready for the case, if you decide you might need me for it, okay?" she added and poked his chest with her index finger.

"Hey, it was an emergency!" Rick groaned, and reached to rub the spot she had poked.

"Getting your drinking buddies out of jail on a Sunday is hardly an emergency," she said, both hands on her hips, but a smile tugging her lips.

"I could have been right there with them…" he mumbled and pouted a little.

"Sure, sure. Whatever you say. But enough of this, Sheriff Grimes. You better get your ass upstairs and into bed. It's school night and you have to work tomorrow," she stated.

Rick smirked, standing up, and following his wife rather pleased.

~::~

Three days, countless of requesting, threatening, angry and begging phone calls, and six different agents later Rick was finally sitting in a waiting room of the federal building in Washington, DC.

The last agent that had been courteous enough to make an appointment for him, was over 20 minutes late and Rick's fingers tapped against the folder that rested on his lap. His right leg, thrown over his left thigh, bounced and jiggled, and he tried not to glance at his wristwatch or the big clock on the wall to see what time it was. The seconds ticked away and he grew more and more impatient as he waited.

His gut was telling him that this was a huge mistake, and he was nervous and jittery for a reason. He'd drank more than four days worth of coffee and his attention span seemed to be drawn into a taut string that was near its breaking point.

He had made a deal with the parties involved with the investigation regarding Daryl shooting the dirty cop that had shot Beth Greene. He had tried to talk to Daryl about it, but the man had just told him to piss off and forget that he had a partner named Daryl Dixon.

That night since the Grady Memorial hadn't parted him in the best of terms with most of Atlanta PD and he hadn't failed to rain the shit down onto other law enforcement agencies either. He had basically accused of every abbreviation based agency and branch of law enforcement of neglecting one of their own and letting him bite the bullet.

In truth he sometimes wondered how he still was able to maintain his position as the county Sheriff.

After the shoddy investigation, and the year long process of court dates, he had been finally coaxed and bullied into testifying against his partner. Rick had never forgiven himself for actually doing it, not even after Daryl had told him to save himself. It was that guilt that obligated him to put his own career and reputation on the line now, for Daryl.

He admitted he had fallen the victim of piss poor reasoning of the Internal Affairs concerning the case, and he had no one else but himself to blame on that.

But when Daryl had called him, he had made inquiries and requests, and then strong-armed all the evidence of that case to be delivered to his house. He had started to recheck everything himself, tracked down the witnesses and talked to the detectives assigned to the case.

He had found holes in the evidence, bigger than the hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic. He had discovered alternating witness statements, alternating back and forth, and several versions buried in the boxes.

The only thing that finally made him decide the whole case was a farce beyond anything legal, was the obscure timeline altered and the investigators' dubious reasoning behind as to why Daryl had acted and pulled the trigger on Dawn Lerner.

Rick glanced down to his lap, at the brown folder, and sighed.

He felt guilty, and he would try to help his friend, and former partner in any way he possibly could. Of course, the shoddy work in the case that had ended Daryl's career and landed him in prison wasn't exactly making Rick feel any less at ease.

The hallway was empty and the fact that the agent he was meant to meet was late, gave him more than enough time to wallow in his guilt.

After all the phone calls, he had finally gotten an appointment with the FBI. He had been invited to meet an agent at the Federal Building.

'Invited' wasn't exactly the correct word for it, though.

The call he had received from the Bureau was more of an order, barked out with a condescending and rude tone. Right now, that and the fact that he had been waiting forever made him pray harder than ever he'd be able to contain his temper.

The case was still fucked up after so many years, and he owned it to Daryl that he'd be able to get something out of the feds.

The door to the office of the said agent remained closed, and he decided that he should go through the evidence he had brought along with him at least once more, and let himself get focused to the white papers, and pictures of the crime scene.

After fifteen minutes the door opened and Rick hurried to close the folder and stood up. A skinny man, in an ill-fitting and slightly wrinkled suit, with tousled red hair and tired eyes stepped outside, turned to look at Rick, with a half apologetic and half expectantly face. Rick noticed quickly the nervous side step he took, as he buttoned up his jacket and hurried over to him.

"Sheriff Grimes?" he asked, sticking his arm out. Rick bit his cheek as he extended his hand over, noticing immediately that this man wasn't the same person over the phone.

"Yeah, Agent…?" he said, drawing the question out as if he wasn't sure anymore if the Agent he was supposed to meet wasn't the same. It also gave him enough time to measure the man up and down with his own prudent gaze.

"Agent Eric Raleigh," he said, flashing a tiny, almost unexpected grin, and then took the hand of Rick's that he was offering to him.

"Huh," he exclaimed slightly surprised.

"Is… Is there a problem?"

"You just don't sound nothing like the guy calling me, is all," Rick said, shaking his head and chiding himself once again that he had been unable to hide his puzzlement.

"Ah yes," Agent Raleigh chortled, almost managing to sound apologetic, which in turn puzzled Rick out even more.

"That is an issue I can't… uh… I can't divulge at this moment," Agent Raleigh mumbled, looking around him as if he had something to hide, "My supervisor decided to direct your visit to me," he then explained, blushing slightly.

"I see, so that was your supervisor?" Rick frowned. He twitched a little, when Agent Raleigh motioned him to follow him back into his office. He motioned Rick to sit to a chair opposite the desk, and then walked around wooden table himself.

"This case is… umm… It is imperative that anything we discuss here today does not leave these halls. This case is highly sensitive," Agent Raleigh stammered, "My supervisor partly expected you to cancel the meeting, because of… you… umm… We were just… Never mind."

Rick realized quickly that Agent Raleigh was anything but condescending and rude. He was actually an upbeat fellow that had practically been ripped a new one to keep Rick at arms length away from the case, and here he was blabbing carelessly tidbits about the case.

"How can I be of service, Sheriff Grimes?" Agent Raleigh asked, after clearing his throat and sitting slightly straighter in his seat and crossing his fingers as he rested his elbows on his desk.

"Beth Greene," Rick said, and placed his folder on the table, "And to an extent, Daryl Dixon."

"Ah, yes."


	4. In our loss and fear

Eighteen hours straight was entirely too much.

She knew it, and yet, she was unable to say no when asked to stay a little while longer. It was already pitch black outside when she got off from work. If she didn't need the money, though, she wouldn't bother to put on that baby blue dress, white apron and broad smile and talk to the patrons like they were the center of the universe any longer than necessary.

She hated the smell of the grease burner. She thoroughly disliked the smell of fries. She abhorred the smell of every single truck driver on this planet. She loathed the stench of cigarettes and cigars. She hated the guys who thought she was there to be pinched from her behind and listen to their poor attempts to seduce her to hop in the sleeping compartment of their eighteen-wheelers.

Every girl she had ever talked in that God forsaken town, had done it. They'd slept with a lonely and slightly desperate trucker in the sleeping compartment of their trucks.

She didn't want to judge people for what they might decide to do. She was at loss of words and thoughts when it came to that particular activity. Most of those men spent hours and hours, days upon days, on the road, all alone. Some had families, some didn't, and some did have their spouse with them. But at the end of the day, Rose could understand the loneliness. She had been alone ever since her father had died. She had lost her only link to her past and she didn't even know where to start looking for relatives, if she even had any. Nevertheless, she felt like she had never wanted to do that before and she definitely wouldn't start now. She didn't remember what she had been like back when she was a teenager, but she sure as hell wasn't about to start reliving her forgotten teen years.

So, if she didn't need the money, she definitely would be doing something else.

She glanced at the clock on her dashboard, the eerie orange light of the speedometer and the gas gauge distracted her for a second. It was nineteen minutes past midnight and she was tired as hell. Sighing she was glad it was only twenty more minutes and then she'd be at the cabin. Rose could leave the world outside the cabin for the next three days.

She needed it badly.

The darkness around the car and the road was so tangible it made all the shadows created by the headlights dance and come alive like they were beasts of the myths of the past. The trees, the forest of both sides of the road were dark and ominous, but at the same time soothing and calling. She felt right at home on this on her way down to the cabin.

She didn't remember where she had grown up. It could have been this place, or it could have been anywhere else. Her father hadn't spoken too much about the time before the accident. So, she had decided she was more of a forest and rain person, than a sand and sun person.

Her father's old cabin seemed to be the only safe and familiar place for her now. It was her safe haven in a way as well. She could say with a fair amount of certainty that she remembered something like the cabin from her past. The cabin did almost feel like home, but it lacked something that she couldn't quite grasp.

 _Something… something that made it her home._

And sometimes, when she closed her eyes she could almost see a man holding her gently, cradling her in his arms, and kissing her bare shoulders. She could always feel the scratchy feeling of a beard, or a stubble, against her skin.

Sometimes, she could almost see the man's face.

She squeezed the wheel, and bit her bottom lip. No, she didn't want to cry.

Rose swallowed few times. She felt the lump in her throat, and it made her hiccup, and swallow more. She cleared her throat once or twice until she was sure she had forced her tears back.

The roads in the Kitsap County were a dark blur without any street lights, and the amount of lumber trucks driving back and forth these roads made them admittedly dangerous. She didn't need to be wiping tears off her eyes and obscuring her vision with driving conditions like these.

It was far better when it was dark anyway.

She could just forget the rest of the world, ignore that there was a town of 1600 people, that she didn't have to go back to work in three days of time, and that she was all alone in the world, or at least this part of the world.

She had never been a big city girl, despite her living in Seattle for a while. Bethel was barely a small town, sleepy and dreary, but it was just not for her. It wasn't enough.

She wanted - she yearned for - something, but she didn't know what. She couldn't remember.

Rose sighed deeply, and wished against any hope that she'd remember what she had been like before, but all she received as a haphazard reply was heavy rain that started all of a sudden.

She flipped her windshield wipers on. They didn't really help all that much. The drizzle on her windshield distorted the view, and in the darkness of the forest road it was getting harder to make out forms outside the vehicle. Everything seemed to have changed shape, and looked far scarier, deadlier, than they would have been in daylight.

She flicked on the high beams, even though it made the surroundings look even more eerie and almost violently malformed.

 _Low beams. Low beams were far better._

It was harder to see with them, but she couldn't help but think how she might end up in a ditch because of a deer that would run onto the road and be hypnotized by the brightness of her lights. Instead of high beams, she eased her foot off the gas and let the truck slow down a notch.

Her dark green Ford truck drove on as she yawned her jaw off.

The first eighteen-wheeler wood transportation truck passed her at the long curve in the road, and nearly blinded her with the brand new high beams, making her grip the steering wheel harder, like onto a life preserver in a middle of a stormy ocean.

As much as she loved the darkness and the solitude of the county, she hated all the lumber trucks that drove down from the lumber yards and from Canada through the state like they were drag racers. The roads had turned from mildly dangerous into perilous in their wake. After the lumber mill had shut down, the amount of trucks driving through the small town, seemed to have doubled.

The lumber trucks had removed safety out of the equation while driving on these roads. Whether they were coming from the North or the South, or driving to the harbors or the sawmills that still were up and running, it didn't matter. They had a schedule to uphold, they had deliveries to haul, and usually it was the straightest route that saved time and money.

But, she'd be at the cabin soon. No road, no diner and no other people for three glorious free days.

Leaning towards the radio, she was about to switch it on, desperately needing something to pep her up and keep her awake for the next few miles until she reached the cabin, when suddenly there was something or someone stumbling onto the road from the darkness.

That someone, crawled on the wet road, finally collapsing down, into a small puddle forming on the wet paved road.

She watched in horror, in slow motion, as the man - yes, it was a man - got up on all fours, turning to look at the car, lifting his right arm in order to ask her to stop, and to help him.

Her first reaction was to hit the gas, and just speed by him. But instead, before she hit him, she slammed the brakes and swerved.

The back end of the car swayed uncontrollably. She made a mistake to turn the wheel and it sent the car spinning around. She saw the man, and the trees, turn into lines, blurring into each other, before the car came to a dreadfully silent halt. She kept her foot down on the break, gripping the wheel and pressing her back against the seat. She drew in gasping short, but shallow breaths, and felt her heart pounding in her throat. It took a minute for her to steady her breathing, and to be able to stop the shaking in her arms and legs. She was, undoubtedly justified, afraid to even think if her legs would carry her when she would stand out of the car. The rapid gasps of her breathing tore the otherwise silent air of the car.

She looked in her rearview mirror, seeing the man on his elbows and knees on the ground. His body shook from head to toe, and she could see his back arching. She guessed he was coughing.

Slowly, she turned to look over her shoulder, through the wet rear window of her pick-up truck. Her seat squeaked underneath her, and the leather of it creaked. The rain began trickling down the back window of her truck distorting the landscape and the man on the street.

Her mind was racing, flooding in a matter of seconds with unanswered questions. What was he doing here in the middle of nowhere? How had he ended up there? Had he driven off the road? Where was his car then?

Rose glanced at the cell phone resting in a small compartment next to the handbrake, thinking that she should have called to the Sheriff, but she couldn't bring herself to reach for the phone.

Thinking of the Sheriff made her frown immediately. The Sheriff of this town was old and he wasn't very keen to do his job anymore. He hadn't done his job well in ages. He would probably arrest the injured man for DUI.

 _Ya can always trust Rick an' me. Ya can always trust the guys we work with._

The words in her mind were softly spoken, and she could feel a hand touching her cheek.

She twitched, gasping, and shot a look at the rear view mirror, only seeing her own blue eyes wide from fear.

She should already be accustomed to these sudden flashbacks from her past life. They popped into her mind every once in a while, usually when she saw or thought something that might have a connection to her life before the accident. She was hardly ever able to decipher them. She had heard the same voice, the same man, in her flashbacks before, but she had no clue who the man speaking to her was. And who was Rick?

So, she made a decision. Most of the people would have called the Sheriff, even an incompetent one, but not her apparently. Trembling with her sudden scary reminder of her life prior to the accident, she went against all the instincts she had, all the instructions received at home and at school and common sense, she reached to open her seatbelt, and then moved to open the door, and push it open, before sliding her feet out.

She felt the water seep through her dark grey canvas shoes almost immediately as her feet touched the road. The rain poured down hard, but determined, she slammed the door shut and ran out on the road, hurrying to the man that now laid on the ground. Her baby blue dress soon became drenched as well, but she barely noticed. Her attention was on the man.

"Oh, my God," she gasped, as she got to him, shocked by his condition.

She shivered from the cold, as the uniform of hers glued onto her skin and her stomach flipped from disgust when she could fully see how badly he was injured.

She knelt down to the man's head, biting her cheek in order to keep herself from squeaking out. It wasn't just an accident like a car crash and driving off the road. She realized that he had been beaten severely.

His clothes were muddy and wet, his hair was glued to his scalp just like her dress was glued onto her body, and his face was soaked by the rain, but also by blood.

Very carefully, as if afraid to be bitten by an angry dog, she reached her hand to touch the man's shoulder. He shifted, opening his eyes with a great deal of difficult, and looked up at her from the corners of her eyes. He then moved, trying to clamber up onto his elbows and knees as he kept coughing and spitting out blood.

Mixture of saliva and blood ran down his chin as he coughed once more.

His right eye was swollen, a black and blue bruise forming steadily around the eye. There was also a nasty looking gash on his forehead, on the left side. Blood kept trickling down along with the rain.

He grimaced, drawing in a wheezing breath, and then growling out low when the coughing tightened his abs, and pain distorted his features. She thought she saw tears filling his eyes, but in the rain it was hard to be sure.

Rose bit her bottom lip, regarding him completely at a loss, as she tried to think what she should do next; what she could do _at all_.

He kept trying his best to stand up, but failed after each attempt. Rose was afraid that he might have had broken ribs, maybe poking his insides, puncturing his lungs.

 _He might have internal bleeding, or worse; damage to his spinal cord._

She frowned at her small yet inappropriately occurring flashback, and didn't quite understand how she could be assessing his injuries as if she was a medical professional.

She stayed on the ground on her knees, next to the man. She glanced down seeing his left hand on the ground in a puddle forming in the rain. It looked swollen, red, like someone had stomped on it - more than once. It looked like he might even had a broken finger or two. And his knuckles…

 _His knuckles!_

She frowned, blinking at the sight of his scraped and bloodied knuckles and the back of his hand.

There were old wounds, healing slowly, but freshly torn open by whatever had happened to him. She had seen those wounds, those same knuckles before. The shudder that wracked through her entire body distracted her for a second, but she couldn't avoid her sudden realization that this man, on the road all bloodied up, was the same man she had served breakfast and coffee early yesterday morning.

She fretted a moment, wiping a strand of wet hair back behind her ear, as the rain poured down and made her blink. Again, she reached out and touched his shoulder, feeling him shudder under her palm.

"What happened? Was it - - was it an accident?" she asked, hating how her voice trembled, but trying to tell her it was just the rain and the cold that made her shudder.

There was no car, truck or a motorcycle anywhere to be seen, and she knew in the back of her mind that whatever had happened to him wasn't an accident, not even described loosely.

His injuries were far too regular, far too different from a car crash victim. He didn't seem to have any injuries to his trachea, or to his pelvis. His legs didn't seem to be broken either, and only fractures she saw on him were the ones on his fingers. Internal damages could be assessed at the hospital.

Her mind was in an overdrive.

She looked in the direction he had crawled from onto the road. Her own truck's lights created a small light bubble around them, but beyond the foggy rim of the light bubble she saw nothing but rain. Grass glistened with droplets of water, bending from the weight of it and the sprung back up after slingshotting the droplets onto the soggy ground. The rest of the surroundings around them was nothing but blackness.

"Can you tell me where it hurts, sir?" she asked, wincing when what she asked felt all too familiar.

He didn't reply to her question, though, but she noticed that the drenched blue shirt he was wearing was stained with blood on the right side. The fabric of the shirt wasn't dark enough to hide the unmistakable stench and hue of blood. Not even when it was wet, and clung onto his skin perfectly and she could see the outlines of something long and jagged running from his side up to his chest, the blood staining the entire length of it.

 _How do I know what blood smells like?_ she thought and bit her cheek to prevent her from sobbing.

He groaned something she didn't quite hear or understand. Maybe he had said it too quietly, or maybe it was her own blood rushing in her ears, and the dull, continuous dripping of the rain for her to comprehend.

"Oh, God," she whispered, looking at the man on the ground. She shook her head. She wasn't sure as to what had caused his wound. I could have been a shard of glass, or even a piece of metal could have cut him badly. In both those cases it meant he had been in an accident, whatever accident it could have been, but it could have easily been also a knife wound. She chewed her lip harder and allowed herself to think that it could not be a gunshot wound.

But despite the dark road, and the heavy rain, it felt painfully familiar, but in a cruel way when she couldn't grasp a hold of the memory. Familiarity of the man and the situation extended far beyond her serving him coffee and breakfast or the soaked road, and it made her reel.

Hoping that the wound on his abdomen wasn't too severe she crawled closer to the man on the wet asphalt, leaning over him.

She wasn't exactly sure how she knew what she was supposed to do, but she began quickly checking his limbs; none of which were broken. Running her fingers over his arms felt yet again familiar and she spooked herself with it, yanking her hands back. Forcing herself to continue, she touched his neck, fingers padding over the cheekbones, and brushing absently his we har away from his eyes.

The familiar feeling wouldn't leave her alone, and it was almost like the smoky curtain of memories was just slightly parted, to allow her to see beyond it, but then they were pulled closed again, and she was left out in the dark.

Her hands trembled when she cradled his head gently between her palms.

"Does any of this hurt? How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked, frantically, sticking two fingers up in the air near the man's face.

The glare he gave to her was pure fire and brimstone, as he coughed and spat up blood for once more.

"Ain't blind, girl," he growled, his voice low, but crude and condescending.

She frowned at his reply, but instead of taking it as a personal insult, she squinted her eyes in the beam of her car's spotlights, and deemed that he had not broken any other bones except two of his fingers and he could quite possibly at least sit up.

She couldn't rule out a possible internal injury, but for that she would have to get him to see a doctor.

"Can you sit up? Maybe stand up too?" she asked then.

He scoffed, and nodded as a brief reply.

She nodded briefly, biting her bottom lip painfully. She then circled her right arm over and around his chest, while her left arm went to his back. Propping her shoulder lightly against his side, she nodded at him once more, and in a mutual and silent agreement, he pushed himself up from the ground as she helped him, pulling him up. He tried to say something, or grunt something maybe, but all that came out was just coughing, bloody phlegm.

She continued to fret about the possible internal injury in her mind, as she flinched at him coughing and spitting on the ground. It was only for a second, that inherent moment when people saw blood for the first time, and it made her realize she had seen blood in situations such as this, and it didn't bother her as much as it possibly should have.

He stumbled forward, coughed again and clutched onto Rose's shoulder. She worried it might be a far more serious injury and he would need surgery, but she would have to get him into her truck first, and then to the hospital.

His shirt clung onto his skin, and when her hand slid down his back, she could feel ridges of old wounds under her fingertips.

 _He has old scar tissue on his back. Why does it seem so familiar?_

He stumbled again, almost tipping over, but clambered up slowly and teetering to find his balance. His right arm hung down, and his left was tightly wrapped around her shoulders. His muscles rippled violently and she could feel his whole body quake. He was in pain, and it reflected onto her. She hated to see him like this, despite she hardly knew the man.

"I have to take you to the hospital," she began, "It's not that far away," explaining at first, but then she yelped when his right palm came around her, fast.

Even injured, he was far quicker in his movements than she was. He grabbed her left shoulder. With his fingers curling around the bone and joints, and his grip tightening to the point where she yelped out of pain, he yanked her closer. His fingers, sticky with blood, slid to her neck, and curled around her throat menacingly.

"No! No fuckin' hospitals," he spluttered out and clutched her shoulders tightly.

She cried out when his fingers dug into her shoulder and arm. She knew there would be bruises tomorrow, as her arm was already throbbing painfully. It was a terrible wake up call all of a sudden that being a good Samaritan didn't always pay back the efforts of helping someone out.

Her mind quickly flooded with all those times she had seen or heard the news where a young woman had disappeared only to be found raped, murdered or both.

But this man didn't seem like he was on a murderous rampage or looking to force himself on anyone, least of all on her.

So, Rose stared at the man clutching her shoulder too hard as he glowered down at her. She tried to find the words, the correct ones, to tell him to stop, tell him that he was hurting her, but at that moment no sound came from her mouth. As soon as their eyes met she noticed the same reflection of fear and panic in his eyes as there certainly was in hers. Staring into his set of blue eyes that were an endless pools of anger, she saw the fear and concern, recognition, and something, almost like affection.

She could hardly understand why this man would feel affection towards her - he barely knew her - but it didn't matter none. He was much taller, and far stronger than she was. If he wanted to he could hurt her and there was nothing she could do. And yet, she stood there, silent and not seeking to escape from his clutch.

Instead she had to wonder how she managed to keep her cool, and without averting her gaze from his eyes, she moved her right arm, raising it up to rest on top of his hand still tight around her shoulder. She moved then her left arm, despite the pain he was causing, and placed her palm flat against his right side, the injured side she knew was probably bleeding still, after being stabbed or shot.

It was almost a perfunctory touch. The skin beneath her palm felt hot, even though the drenched shirt and cold water pouring from the skies. He stared at her and when she pressed ever so lightly, he grimaced from the pain.

"You have an injury on your side and it's bleeding. You're coughing up blood which might mean you are bleeding internally, you might have a punctured lung, or it could be far worse. I _have_ to take you to the hospital!" she insisted, yelling over the sound of the heavy rain and her own truck idling in the middle of the road.

It might have been a bad idea to piss off a person who could snap your neck with one flick of fingers, but she wasn't going to watch this man to bleed to death.

She stared at him, and her instincts told her that it was probably just a severe injury to his teeth, or maybe even a laceration on his tongue that was causing the bleeding, because the man wasn't showing any symptoms of pneumothorax, and he was awfully spry for a man with internal bleeding. Once again, she didn't know why she knew these things, and why she was so certain of it, but she allowed herself to trust her gut feeling.

Yet, she insisted on taking him to the hospital. It was mostly because it would be a good two-hour drive to the nearest hospital, if not counting the Naval Base that was a good deal closer. But, since he wasn't too keen to the idea of going to a hospital, she figured he would be even less inclined to the idea of going to a Navy base.

His reply was dead silence.

She nodded promptly at his silent reply, and slid her arm under his arm, gently ushering him towards her truck.

He stumbled forward with each step and she thought they would never reach the car, that he'd faint from sheer exhaustion before they got there. His fingers dug into her side and she had to keep biting her lip. He yanked her closer, cursing under his breath, and stumbling forward.

Rose could feel his muscles working underneath her fingers, with each agonizing step. She heard him grunt and huff, fighting through the pain. She glanced up at him, seeing only half of his face. His features handsome, yet distorted with the pain.

 _He's handsome. He seems smart and he was polite at the diner. Why is he - - why is he in a situation like this? And why does he feel so familiar?_

He grunted and she was yanked back to the reality from her thoughts. They reached the car in two steps, and she helped the man lean against the car, as she reached for the passenger side door and wiggled it open.

"Sit here," she said, guiding him down onto the seat, "Oh, God, where's that seatbelt…" she continued, fumbling with the seatbelt she finally fished out and shifted him in the seat, as she began strapping him there.

He held his stomach and coughed again, leaning his head against the headrest of the seat, and then turning his head so he was looking at her.

"Thanks," he coughed.

"Don't mention it," she mumbled back. She looked down at his stomach. This time, she didn't shiver or pull back. She slid her fingers to the hem of the dark blue shirt, pulling it up.

There were two long gashes running from his abdomen and up to his chest. He had bled heavily before, now, it was merely trickling a little.

She couldn't help it. She flinched. To give her the credit she did it only once, and it was barely a shudder as if she was feeling cold.

She realized that her lifting his shirt up meant that the fabric of his shirt that had gotten bonded with the stickiness of the blood now ripped open the bloody skin and wound again.

She then lifted her gaze to meet his.

"I… I have to take you to the hospital, you're bleeding all over the place - -," she mumbled, cringing at the sound of her voice that made her sound weak.

She shuddered, feeling her lips trembling, and had no delusions that she looked absolutely soaked. The rain had already soaked all of her clothes that now clung onto her frame as she stood there, staring at the stranger. Her teeth clattered and she tugged her sleeves down and rolled them around her fists, hunching her shoulders. Her hair escaped from the loose ponytail and fell down in wet strands.

"You've got yarn and a needle at home?" he asked, his voice hitching a little and sounding strained. He shifted in the seat, looking down, he groaned and cursed under his breath, as he lifted his palm off the bleeding gash.

"Shit!" he swore out loud, and threw his head back against the seat.

"Y-Yes," she replied, swallowing a hard lump in her throat. A thought of what he was suggesting began dawning to her.

She had seen her father do it, a memory that came back to her as clear as day, and it made her gasp. She stared at the man, her own eyes wide, as she remembered how she had done it too, but to an animal, stitching surgical wounds under the guidance of her own father. She blinked a few times, frowning and feeling flustered at such a memory.

 _Hershel Howe had not been a veterinarian! Or - - had he? How come he was teaching her to suture wounds otherwise?_

"No," she mumbled, biting her bottom lip, and trying to sort out the memories in her head, "No, no way. It would be far better if I take you to a hospital!" she then called out.

His hand came up so fast that she didn't have enough time to react. His fingers were on her throat and jaw, again, and there was a feeling of pressure, as he squeezed just a little.

This time she squeaked a little, admitting to herself that he was surely a fighter, as he seemed to know how to scare girls, and in her mind, she didn't hesitate to believe for one moment that he knew how to take a life, and as such had taken one, or more.

"No fuckin' hospitals!" he growled again, more serious and more angered than before.

But again, she remained calm and level headed. Maybe it seriously had been a mistake to stop and help him. Maybes she should have just called the state police. Or the Sheriff.

But the Sheriff was a dick and she had stopped. Sheriff Owens wouldn't be understanding, nor would he even try to investigate this matter. Calling to the state police or the Sheriff was not an option anymore.

She had him in her car now. She had to help.

When she nodded finally, he let go of his hold and sulked back into his seat. She reached to strap the seatbelt finally on, in silence. Once it was done, Rose hurried around the car and climbed behind the wheel.

"Okay, I'll take you my place," she murmured and looked at the man.

He turned to look at her from under his wet hair, and she suddenly remembered how she had smiled at a glare like that once.

" _Don't be silly."_

" _Ain't."_

" _Yes, you are. Stop thinking the worst of people."_

" _Why wouldn't I? Don't deserve you. I mean it, Beth."_

" _Daryl…"_

" _Ya saved me. But I ain't good for you, girl."_

" _You saved me too, Daryl."_

She saw them clearly now, the pale blue eyes, like his, looking at her in a car, in another place, another time. She didn't know what it was about, she didn't know the man either.

The names, all too familiar and etched in her memory for some reason, resonated in her mind. They were there for some reason, and she got the feeling the two people meant something, to her and to each other, but she couldn't see the faces of the people talking.

She only saw the pair of blue eyes, looking at her like the stranger was looking at her now.

Feeling like out of breath and startled by the memory that had suddenly surged through her like a locomotive through a tunnel, she bit her lip, placing her hands on the steering wheel.

He said nothing, just closed his eyes, his hand holding onto his stomach.

She continued to bite her lip, trying her best not to think of what she would find out when she would get her hands on him, and what he would do if and when he'd get better.

~::~

He passed out as soon as she got him inside the cabin.

He groaned just a little, when she closed the front door, and he slipped from her grasp, as she had no more strength to hold him up. He keeled over, falling on the floor with a loud thud, right on the floor, on top of her dirty old hand weaved rug, and a pair of shoes, and some mangy dog toys.

She fought to turn him over, onto his back, and huffed heavily when she finally managed to do so. He didn't even stir when she flipped him over and his arm smacked on the hardwood floor painfully.

Standing up, she watched her dogs trotting from her bedroom to meet her, as she moved, turning around and locked the front door. They growled at him, but she shooed them away with a snap order, glad that they were a bit too protective over her. She hoped they would continue to do so in the morning when he was awake.

Three of them Atka, Desna and Qilaq were her father's old dogs. She couldn't remember if he'd had dogs before, but they had accepted her quickly as if she was member of their pack anyway. The fourth dog, Nanuk, was her own. She had gotten the puppy when she had returned to Kitsap County.

Unable to give the dogs away, she had needed the company after her father had died, and besides, the dogs kept her safe in the small cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Letting him lay on the floor, she went to look for a pillow and a blanket for him. She knew she wouldn't be able to drag the man into the bedroom, or onto her couch. He was simply too heavy for her.

She hugged the pillow and the blanket and the small towel she found in the bedroom closet and walked back, finding her dogs sniffing at the passed-out man and she had to shoo them away once more. There were several displeased growls from the dogs, and she saw Atka and Nanuk both grouching and sidestepping around the man, hackles raised. Rolling her eyes, she shooed them away again, and then kneeled down on the floor.

Gently, she lifted his legs and tucked the pillow under his knees. and rolling the towel into a small tube, she placed it under his neck, making sure his airways weren't blocked. She frowned when droplets of water dripped down onto him, from her hair, and dropped the blanket on the floor, sighing.

Quickly, she returned to the bedroom, and picked up two more towels, and a sewing kit, heading into the bathroom to find the first aid package as well.

She was hesitant, and her knees felt slack and sluggish.

At this point, it didn't matter if she wanted to do this or not. There was no way he would go to the hospital by himself, she didn't have the strength to drag him to the truck by herself and she wasn't able to decide against his wishes anyway.

At this point, she could either help him herself, or figure out what to do if he happened to die on her ' _welcome'_ mat. Neither of the options were good, but she already knew she wouldn't let him die.

Tossing most of the items she had picked up already onto the floor next to the man she then ran into the kitchenette with three needles in her hand. She poured water into a small saucepan and placed it on the stove. She dropped the needles into the pan, and then picked up a lighter from the drawer, before she returned to the man passed out on her floor.

His arm was splayed on the floor, the other resting on his chest, and his head was tilted to the side, his face almost covered with his hair. Had she not known he was injured and unconscious she could have said he was just sleeping.

She kneeled down, touching his neck, searching for a pulse, and sighed in relief when she found one.

It wasn't weak, but it wasn't strong either, but at least it was there.

She hurried back into the kitchenette and switched off the stove, grabbed the pan, and brought it back to the man with her.

Kneeling once more on the floor next to him, she had to place the steaming pan of water on the floor, before she reached one of the towels and the first aid kit. She took a deep breath, and with trembling hands she reached for his shirt, preparing herself for the worst but already knowing it would be gruesome in the all revealing light of the cabin.

It was an understatement that the man had been beaten and left for dead.

He had bruises all over his abdomen, more forming each second, small scrapes and scratches here and there, but his hand and fingers, along with the gash on his forehead and the wound on his abdomen were clearly the severe ones.

It wasn't an easy task to do, there were so much blood, but she began cleaning him up with the hot water, and the towel. She had to stop and try to bandage his abdominal wound - - and try to do it without gagging. The blood flow had halted, and the it had turned into a sticky mess of skin, wound and the fabric of his shirt. When ever she moved the shirt it made a wet ripping sound, and when she wiped the wet towel over the syrup like stickiness of the blood, it seemed to lag and scrape against the wound.

Whoever had beaten him had made sure not to beat his face too much. It felt weird to Rose, since she had seen men whack each other as hard as they possibly could and never bother to be exceptionally cautious about the face. Of course she didn't have time to start contemplating the fighting habits of men at that particular moment.

She gagged, nearly throwing up, when she wiped his eyelids from still fresh blood, and dared to see if he really was out cold. Lifting his lid showed her that he had a nasty looking red eye, burst capillaries in the eye, and a small but quite possibly a painful scratch on his lid, reaching to the waterline. It continued to trickle blood one drop at a time, as she continued to wipe his face at least somewhat clean. He would sport a fat lip for days to come, maybe a black eyes too. The nasty looking gash on his forehead would heal soon enough, even though she had worried about it initially. Rest of the smaller scrapes and scratches weren't enough to mention.

Every injury on his face would heal, but he would look rather swollen and hideous for quite some time.

When she moved onto the abdominal wound that had now almost stopped bleeding she very nearly did throw up then and there. It looked disgusting. Ragged edges on it and the sheer length of it made her think it was done by a knife but the pinpointed location of bleeding and the strangely burnt skin suggested a gunshot wound. He had been cut, badly, and he had been shot and burned.

What she had seen on the road and in the car were just feeble glimpses of it.

The wound eventually stretched from his abdomen all the way to his chest starting as a deep cut, before ending to a shallow flick. Smaller cuts curled down to his side, and reached to his back.

Rose felt a panic beginning to grow deep inside of her. She bit her lip hard, thinking how he would need a transfusion, and stitches, and how unsanitary it was for her to be doing it here, on the floor of the cabin, with dogs trotting around them.

 _Please, don't let him die!_

She wasn't sure if she believed in God anymore, or if she ever had, but this seemed to be an occasion she needed to ask whatever higher power there were to protect this man.

She continued to clean the cuts the best she could and tried to bandage the cleaned portions the best she could. After two failed attempts to get the bleeding to stop on the large wound, she had to give up and accept that she didn't have any other choice but to stitch him up herself.

So, after a moment to compose herself she reached for the sewing kit, hoping and prayer filling her thoughts, that she had cleaned the cuts well enough not to cause infection. With trembling hands she threaded the string through the eye of the needle with a great deal of difficulty. Shuddering and feeling queasy, she reached over his stomach and pinched both sides of the horrific cut together.

Trying very hard to control her trembling fingers she took a better hold of the needle, but when she looked down and saw the blood, his blood, on her them, she yanked her hands back abruptly.

She didn't have gloves, she knew she should have. It would have been sterile that way, it would have been safer that way, but she didn't even own a pair of dishwashing gloves. Her thoughts seemed to halt, concentrating on the detail of gloves, while the rest of her mind seemed to spin round and round uncontrollably.

Rose felt tears rolling down her cheeks, and suddenly there were the sounds of muffled sobs she realized were coming from her. One of the dogs, Atka, circled around the man once, twice, came to her, sniffing and licked the salty tears from her cheeks. It made her chuckle a little but she had to push the dog aside gently.

"N-Not now Atka. I have to do this," she mumbled.

She stopped, if only for a few moments, taking a second to gather herself yet again, and to prevent herself from throwing up, thinking how she might feel better if she did throw up once and for all.

After gaining some semblance of self-control, she scooted closer, flexing her fingers few times, before placing them on his abdomen on the opposite sides of the wound, and pinched the ragged edges together once more. She tried to hold them as tightly as possible, all the while ignoring the blood that made everything twice as hard, and then, pushed the needle through his skin.

Hearing the squelching, wet sound and feeling the stickiness of his skin under her fingers kept her sobbing and crying through it all. Tears blurred her vision, making her blink and trying to wipe her eyes onto her arm. Her cheek left a faint trace of foundation on her sleeve, and she could predict how her mascara must have splotched her eyes like a raccoon by now.

 _I have to do it. I have to do it. I have to do it._

She kept repeating the mantra in her head, all the while praying the whole time that he wouldn't feel any pain, prayed that he wouldn't go into septic shock, and prayed for him to survive. The more rational side of hers seemed to have resorted into hoping that she wouldn't have to explain to anyone, the police or any medical personnel, why his stitched had been botched up by her poor handiwork. And somewhere deep inside of her mind, that smoky curtain of memories seemed to allow her to realize that she actually knew how to tie a stitch and that it was practically muscle memory that made her able to do them at that moment.

When she reached for the pan of hot water she saw all the dogs sitting nearby staring at her and the strange man she had brought into their domain with unbridled curiosity.

Sniffling, she wiped some of the blood with the towel again, and realized she was trembling violently when she tied the last knot to the thread and cut it. Reaching for the clean towel, she moistened it with the water and began wiping the blood from around the wound and all over his skin. She accused herself of doing poor job at it, but then amended there was only so much she could do.

Switching the towel for the bandages, she physically fought, practically wrestled with the man, to tie it around his abdomen, to make sure big wound wasn't exposed.

She wiped her nose on her arm and sniffed again while looking at her achievement. It seemed to be like a thick pad had been spread around the man's torso, but it was the best she could do under these circumstances. Maybe if he was in better shape tomorrow, if he was still alive, she could redo the bandages and then drive him to the hospital.

She gathered all the dirty towels and the first aid kit's content into the pan full of water, and then leaned over, tucking one of the towels flattened under the man's head, and then spread the blanket over him.

She then, gasped, feeling her anxiety levels spiking, and she had to crawl away from him on all fours. She broke down in tears, as she collapsed against her couch, and tried to catch her breath. Her hands were still blotchy with blood, and she couldn't help but stare. She felt horrible. Her stomach felt queasy when she thought about what she had just done.

Rose closed her eyes, she felt warmth around her when she saw a small woman, smiling and wearing a white apron and a red dress. She offered her a mug full of hot chocolate with marshmallows in it. She sat on a chair, in a large kitchen and she was crying because Nelly had injured her leg.

" _Daddy says he doesn't know if Nelly makes it!"_

" _Hush, my child. She is a good horse, she knows you still need her."_

" _But what if Daddy has to… What if she…. What if he has to put her to sleep, Mama?!"_

Her brow knitted together.

She didn't recognize the kitchen, or the horse, or herself. She had never owned a horse, had she? That kitchen looked like it was in a large house, but all she knew that she and her parents had lived in this cabin, even before her mother had died, and way before her accident, and her father's death.

The woman in the red dress and white apron on the other hand was familiar, and she could hardly believe it. It was her mother, after all. She had seen her in that one picture he had ever shown her.

She shook her head and opened her eyes, but the memories, the images kept coming. She saw the woman smiling still as she helped a man, a grey-haired man, with a dog's leg wound. She watched her suture the wound quickly and effortlessly, as she encouraged her to observe.

When the grey-haired man turned around, smiling at the small woman and then at her as well she recognized her father.

Sweat pearled on her forehead and she was breathing heavily.

She was Hershel Howe's daughter, and her mother Annie Howe had died a long time ago, when she was just a baby.

These two people in her fitful dream, a cruel display on her expense or perhaps a desperate attempt of peaceful life conjured by her subconsciousness couldn't be her parents.

 _Why would this happen now? Do I know him? Oh God, please let this be just a horrible nightmare._

It hit her then, she had lost her memory not more than four years prior.

When she had woken up in a hospital room, surrounded by two nurses that smiled awkwardly to her, and a doctor who barely spoke to her and her father, she had been dreadfully scared. It had taken a while for her to understand that her father was indeed her father. He had told her about the accident and her memory loss.

Now that he was gone, she was left alone with no memories of her family, or her life before the accident or even any clues where to find any living relatives if she had any. Maybe it was just her.

The feeling of being alone overwhelmed her and she began hyperventilating.

"No…" she mumbled.

Maybe she was just too tired. She was tired, and it made her see things that weren't there, things that weren't real.

She could skin animals, she had been taught to do so by her father. She could finish off an animal if it was suffering. It wasn't pleasant, and she would cry the whole time, but she could do it, it was the humanely thing to do. And yet, if she had to stitch a fellow human being she suddenly behaved like it was being done to her without any anesthesia.

Too much.

It all felt too much and her head was starting to ache.

She stood up shakily, heading to the bathroom. For a moment, she stared at her bloodied fingers in front of the sink before she opened the taps and watched the sink filling with steaming hot water. She then sank her hands inside and picked up the nail brush and soap and began scrubbing them clean.

Half an hour. It took half an hour for her to scrub clean her hands. The skin prickled when she pulled her hands from the hot water and rinsed the soap off. Her hands were pink, and sore. They trembled when she reached for the plug, letting the water drain into the sewer, then she reached for the towel. She sighed, stepped out of the bathroom and switched the lights off. She picked up a tube of almond-scented lotion from the shelf and walked timidly to the couch and sat down. She already knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. She had a badly beaten man in her cabin, sleeping away on the floor in front of the door. She had just cleaned him up and, quite literally, sewn him back together. There were no guarantees that he wouldn't wake up when she would fall asleep. Never mind that the diner's security camera had him on tape, he could do anything he wanted before Stan or anyone else knew to suspect that something was wrong. She wasn't due to come back to work until on Tuesday morning. It was only Saturday now.

Her dogs, all four of them, crawled one by one to the couch where she was sitting huddled in the corner of it. She pulled Nanuk, her big white and grey husky, next to her and petted and scratched him for a moment. He settled next to her easily and let her pet his head, closing his eyes, when she slowly rubbed his snout and massaged his ears.

When she pulled the blanket over her and rested her head against the pillow, she closed her eyes. And to that, she did fall asleep, thinking that this had been one monumentally long day, and was thankful she didn't have to go back to work in the morning.


	5. You may tire of reality

**a/n: C-130 Hercules is a military cargo plane. Humongous cargo plane.**

 _ **Chapter 5: "You may tire of reality but you never tire of dreams"**_

With every loud shrilling sound of a cell phone ringing in his pants' pocket, an agonizing screech tore through his beaten-up skull, making it nearly impossible for him to regain his aching consciousness. Forcing himself to open his eyes, and fighting to keep them open took a moment.

His blurred and tired mind was practically paralyzed, and his bruised and swollen eyes didn't bring much help either, making him unable to recognize the hazy and dark view in front of him.

His gaze darted back and forth on the unlit ceiling of what seemed to be a log cabin, looking for a solid memory of recognition, or any item that might jumpstart his brain, but finding none.

He blinked few times before turning his head very carefully.

Every single movement felt strenuous and agonizing, and muscles screeched, resisting violently him moving an inch.

He haphazardly caught himself thinking if he was having a hangover of his life, he'd never drink again, but deep in his mind he knew better, and it made him wish it actually was just a hangover.

The dimly lit cabin was oddly familiar with dark wooden walls, dark brown brown couch, but none of it called for a horrible childhood memories, or desperation that had followed Beth's death, when he had spent days upon days locked up in his cabin, drinking.

He shifted his head again, eyes landing on the sudden scene of four pairs of curious eyes staring down at him, followed by a bad breath of four dogs, as they began poking their noses at his face.

"Okay, okay," he groaned, trying to push the dogs away, but having not that much of luck at it. He moved, feeling his clothes and skin sticking to something on the floor. All of the dogs perked up, two stood up, trotting happily around him sniffing and huffing. The other two remained still, as if assessing the situation, and him.

"Yeah, good boys. Keep an eye on me," he mumbled, his voice coarse and his throat scratchy.

Finally clambering up to a sitting position, he grimaced at the jolt, when he felt it shoot through him from his abdomen and finally registering in his brain as pain. It left him gasping for air, as his hand quickly flew onto his stomach. The bandages on the wound, and around his waist felt awkward and heavy, like a vest made out of layers and layers of toilet paper.

Biting his lip, he grasped the air and the floor trying to find something solid for purchase, found nothing and stopped to regroup himself. He pushed himself on his feet, with trembling and achy arms, and tried to take a step. It made him collapse immediately back onto the floor on his hands and knees, unable to hold his balance.

It was partially from dizziness, mild one, he'd have it worse, but mostly because of the nauseating taste of blood, salty and metallic, in his mouth. The twinge of sharp throbbing pain on his abdomen caused him to grit his teeth together once again.

He had a vague recollection as to what had happened, but it was still impossible to piece out all the events of the previous night together. Swaying in place, on all fours, he took few deep breaths, before he dared to move. He managed to grope his way to the bathroom, followed there by a pack of dogs, that didn't know whether to growl at him or to beg for some of his attention.

Daryl reached the door, and stood up on his knees, feeling again pain coursing through him. He slammed his palm on the door, leaving a dirty handprint, as he wavered a little, and then twisted the the handle to open the damn thing. He crawled into the bathroom, pulling the door shut after him. Groping the wall, he found the light switch, but as soon as the harsh lights came alive, he groaned when it hit his eyes.

The nauseating feeling that hit him in the fluorescent light made him want to hug the porcelain throne, but instead, he blinked few times, looking around himself, and realizing that even if the cabin was a lot like a hunter's lodge, the bathroom was pale, white and fair blue, decorated with a painting on the wall, and small succulents placed on every available shelving. The bathroom smelled like flowers and makeup, disheveled next to the sink on the counter.

It was definitely girly. It was serene. It was quiet.

He growled and then groaned when his muscles contracted in his stomach.

"Fuck," he swore out loud, and turned his head up. He grabbed the edge of the sink, and pulled himself up, unable not to rip himself a new one about being up a shit creek.

Finally standing up, yet clutching the sink for some solid ground, he looked into the mirror in front of him.

It revealed the full horror of his previous night's activities.

He stared into the blank eyes of the battered face of his reflection, looking down at his uncomfortably soaked shirt and finding it to be the origin of the disgusting stench of blood. It was all over the fabric, making it still damp, and sticky. Slowly, his muscles still opposing every movement, he lifted up the sticky cloth, with slightly trembling hands and stared at the grotesque sight of his stomach.

Even though he saw the bandages around his waist and chest covered most of the real trauma, there still was enough to feel disgusted about. There were minute traces of wiped blood on his skin. He let his fingers touch some of the dried blood, tightening his skin, and felt it trickle off when he brushed over it. He saw some of the smaller scars on his abdomen, some widening to bigger scars, that had closed on their own, and some disappearing under layers of gauze and bandages.

And when he looked back up again, he shook his head and grimaced at the black and blue and red display of his face. There was a heavy black eye, only partially swollen, and a rather painful scar on his eyelid, and few butterfly bandaids on the gash on his forehead.

Staring himself in the eye, he then remembered vaguely how he'd crawled onto the road, and a car had stopped, after nearly driving over him.

 _The girl from the diner._

He gritted his teeth together and it came all flooding back. Beth had stopped, and helped him. He'd behaved like a fucking dick, and he twitched out of guilt when he remembered how he had squeezed her shoulder so hard. And yet, she'd helped him, taken care of him. She had even brought him here, whatever place this was.

He shook his head again and closed his eyes. His brain was now working overtime, as it flooded his mind of images of him asking more details of his work, pictures of his target, and then receiving a WITSEC files on both of the targets.

 _Elizabeth Anne Greene, Hershel Howard Greene, accidental shooting, severe brain trauma, WITSEC, relocated, classified._

All the words jumbled in his mind as they flooded back.

A painful sob escaped from his lips and he hunched over the sink.

It was really her.

It was Beth, and she was alive. And yet, he had not known. Nobody had told him.

Instead, they all had blamed him. They had accused him, they had tried him, sent him to prison for two years for negligence and now, he'd found out that her death wasn't real, and the whole sad chain reaction of that fateful day was a lie.

But fuck if he hadn't blamed himself for it. He'd had two years to go through every scenario in his mind, every choice he had made and every alternate possibility he could have done.

Yeah, he still blamed himself.

He couldn't quite figure out how the hell his life had ended up in this jam in the first place. Beth Greene, suffering from amnesia after being shot and believed to be dead, alive, and him, been hired and sent to kill her and her father. He chortled, winced from the abdominal pain and wiped his cheek against his palm.

He swore again, under his breath, and heaved. A sharp pain, dragged him back from his reminiscing, and he moved to check up on his bandages. With gritted teeth, he touched the white gauze and the would tape that was holding it in place. He dug into the gauze a little. It felt thick, almost too tight. His entire body was sore and aching, though, so he had no real clue if it was too tight. Nevertheless, it wasn't anything he hadn't gone through before. It had been a whole lot worse back in the Corps training and later during missions.

He touched his skin around the gauze and growled a little. It felt hot, like it was on fire, making him swear under his breath because he knew why that was. Trying to wrack his brain and remember if he had any antibiotics in his car, he was caught off guard when he suddenly coughed, and nearly fainted from the sheer agony tearing through his abdomen, from the abrupt muscle spasm. His hand slipped when he tried to get some weak support from the sink, and he slammed his left hand onto the bathroom wall, leaving a faint trace of sticky blood on the white tiles.

His eyes focused on that print on the wall, as the small space of the bathroom spun around, and he had to lean against the sink and the door in order to steady himself. He took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head slightly. It wasn't the best of ways to regain some semblance of control but it worked this time. Leaning over the sink, he struggled to open the tap and splash some cold water on his face, and then proceeding to wince as his bruises stung at the contact of his hands and the water.

He had wished beyond all hope, that he would wake up, but it proved out to be the painful realization that this was not some disturbing nightmare his sleep deprived brain had conjured to torment him once again, but instead the brutal reality.

Brutal, painful and awfully noisy reality that made him queasy.

"Fuck," he cursed at himself.

Another shrill sound from his cell phone interrupted his thoughts, as it seemed to reverberate through the entire bathroom.

"Alright, alright," he groaned, "Jesus… who the fuck…"

He dug into his pocket, trying to fish out his cell at the same time as he stumbled out of the bathroom. It proved to be trickier. His balance had not yet fully restored, and the blood that stained his jeans had dried, making the fabric rigid and hard.

Before he could reach the phone in his pocket, he stumbled into the blonde haired woman that had helped him, and caught the pair of bluest eyes that would have made him move worlds for her. Blue eyes, that now were dilated from surprise, shock and fear.

Beth.

She wore a pair of jean shorts and a baggy grey sweatshirt. Her hair was gathered in a messy and fluffy bun on top of her head, and a loose strand or two framed her terrified face.

 _No, she didn't get to look at him with fear!_

It was downright scary to realize how fast he had thought of that. She had never looked at him like she was afraid of him. Not even when he had practically shouted at her on their first meet, on the side of the road, where she had fallen down with her bicycle years ago.

"'s my cell," he growled at her now, and waved the shrilling phone in front of her eyes to prove his words.

She nodded, her mouth a tight line, and relaxed just a little. He still looked at her, worried that she'd kick him out or call the cops on him, because things were certainly different in the light of the day. He slid his hand onto the back of his neck, groaning with pain again, when he felt the swelling, and slowly he brought the phone to his ear, answering the call.

"Yeah?"

The other end was silent, and it bode no good news.

He glanced at her once as he was taking a step but had to quickly back against the wall, and steady himself once more.

"Who's this?" he called, but the eerie silence continued and no answer was given to him.

Her eyes twinkled out of curiosity as she looked back at him. There was a faint wrinkle between her eyebrows, which made Daryl curse out loud at himself, as he ended the call quickly. Without her noticing, he pressed the power button and made sure the damned thing shut down.

He'd seen enough of these calls. He had made few of them himself.

Target surveillance, target tracking or verifying the target's current condition and whereabouts, as well as distracting the said target with a fake call. He winced as he thought he would have to stand a ground in this cabin, with Beth, and berated himself for fucking up so royally by answering the call.

He was still in the process of trying to catch and organize his thoughts that seemed to spin out of control, when the girl spoke next to him.

He ignored her words, seeing only how her lips moved with the words. Her presence was creating an unwanted distraction from his thoughts. But, he must have looked puzzled because she smiled slightly, and captured his gaze into her eyes before she spoke.

"You need stitches," she said softly, and only slightly exasperated, " _Better_ stitches. I'm not sure how good of a job I did."

Again, trying to concentrate on two things at the same time, and trying to figure out the choices he had from now on, as well as trying to figure out what he could do with her and what he could tell her, he remained silent. He stood back up again, taking few steps, his mind telling him to pace back and forth, but it was again that screeching, whole body incapacitating pain that stopped him. His palm quickly pressed against his abdomen, feeling the layers of gauze through his shirt.

She was at his side in an instant, her blue eyes on him, watching him like a hawk, and making him feel overwhelmed by this situation.

He was torn between wanting to tell her who he was, who she was and how they knew each other, and not knowing if he should say anything at all. But, fuck if he didn't want to pull her close and feel her body against his, just to be sure she was real, that she wouldn't disappear into thin air once he touched her like so many times before.

He needed to find out what the hell was going on.

He needed to talk to her father as well.

He could protect them both, but he needed all the information he could get and the WITSEC files were just one side of the story, and an experience had left him skeptical about the unbias of the facts in the files. He knew they held back information from the cyber files, and even from the hard copies. There were only one or two Marshals who knew all the details.

Hershel would know their side of it, he would know more than the files let him know.

"Let me help you," her soft voice startled him again, and he glanced down at her.

Her hands slid quickly around his waist, and she was under his arm holding onto his hand tightly. He was moving with her before he even realized it, and followed her into the dining area where she helped him to sit down.

"Thanks," he grumbled, and she smiled as an awkward reply.

Telling her about her past, and that she knew him, could seriously damage her.

He would never forget that she had been shot in the head. His nightmares of that day would haunt him forever and then some. As he looked at her, he could see the faint scar on her forehead - the point of impact - and it filled him with anger, sadness and guilt.

He didn't know how much she remembered, if at all, or how much she knew. How much had Hershel or the Marshals told her once she had been relocated? He couldn't risk it if she had instructions in case someone from her past came a-knocking; and not because she would probably call the cops on him, but because it would put her in danger.

He realized he'd been quiet for a while. She was still looking at him intently, worry laced in her gaze. Pulling himself from the thoughts, he lifted his head and turned to look at her. Her whole body tensed, and she turned quickly to look at the kitchen counter. He spied quickly a set of knives there. Nevertheless, she had brought him to her place. Even when he had acted crazed and scared her half to death at night on the highway, by grabbing her throat, and her arm, growling at her to not to take him to a hospital.

He had never hit her, of course. He had never hit a girl or a woman in his life.

He felt his fingers tingling like electricity running through them, and he stretched them, well knowing he was capable of doing something like that. He already had blood on his hands from all the marks he had been hired to get rid of or beat and threat.

It wasn't really a surprise that he knew he could hurt her, and yet he managed to be surprised as to how much damage could someone's DNA do to their children. That was indeed just another brutal realization of his life.

He wasn't his father. He needed to apologize.

"Where am I?" he asked, turning to look at the blonde-haired woman that had no idea who he was.

"In my cabin,"she replied simply, just a bit out of breath, as if she had held her breath for as long as he had been silent.

His eyes wandered down to the floor in front of the door and spotted the blanket and the pillow that he had left behind when had crawled his way into the bathroom. He saw the bloodied rags on the kitchen table and the needle still threaded with a piece of black string that seemed to be stiffened by blood.

"I couldn't… I couldn't drag you to the couch, or the bed," she said in an explanation, when she spotted him frowning a bit. It sounded almost apologetic and he couldn't understand why she was feeling sorry.

He didn't _need_ an apology.

It was a surprise on itself that he wasn't sleeping in a bodybag on some county doctor's slab.

Jesus, he had slept on worse places than on her cabin's welcome mat!

He'd slept on rocks, in dirt, in a watery ditch, and the noisy cargo hold of a C-130 Hercules. He'd slept in a 5 by 6 concrete box, he'd slept in a holding cell in chains. He'd slept underneath a boat, and inside of a dumpster. Christ, if he remembered his childhood, he had slept on cold ground with his brother as his only warmth when he was barely ten years old.

He'd barely slept during his training.

Sleeping on the floor of a cabin by the front door with a pillow and a blanket to add was better than any five-star luxury hotel room.

"'s fine," he grumbled.

He saw her quickly bite her lip at his reply, before she let go of it, and her forehead creased a little. He knew that face. He knew when ever she was feeling slightly confused or when she wanted to solve a problem she would make that face.

"Thank you," he quickly offered to her, and felt instantly relieved when she nodded as a reply, "And… uh… 'm sorry about the…" he continued with a nervous stutter, and made a vague gesture towards her neck.

She stopped moving, the smile she'd have ghosting on her face died, and her palm flew onto her neck. She shook her head emphatically and then, chuckled equally nervous.

"It's fine, I spooked you. Umm, I h-have clothes for you," she stated, gasped and blushed heavily, "For you to change into, that is. If you want to," adding then quickly.

Her head tilt, one of those gestures she made, made Daryl's heart wrench in his chest. He couldn't bring her into this mess. He just needed to make sure she was safe before he left.

When he didn't say anything, she pointed and stepped towards the couch. He spotted a small, neatly folded pile of clothes on the armrest; a shirt, pants, socks, and a black hoodie. The awkward silence from him continued, and it made her twiddle with her sleeves, fingers nervously tugging the fabric over her hands, as the red hue spread down onto her neck. She took few jittery steps in her place, adrenaline induced panic rising steadily.

It wasn't because he didn't want to thank her, it wasn't because he didn't think it was a nice gesture, but it was because he couldn't believe that she - Beth, his Beth - was actually alive, and that she was still the same Beth deep down in her core, despite not being able to remember him, or her past life.

He stood there, dumbfounded and quiet, just staring at the pile of clothes, and when he didn't make a move or a sound, she pointed with her finger towards the bedroom, muttering something under her breath.

"I've got something…." she whispered, but when she made a move to go there, Daryl came back to and grabbed her by her arm, again watching her flinch noticeably. He'd seen _that_ flinch before. She expected a brutal blow on her face, tilting her head that he'd only hit - maybe - her ear or the side of her head instead of her cheek or her eye or nose. She'd been on the receiving end before and it made his blood boil for all the times he had not been there for her, to protect her, over the course of the last five years.

She blinked few times when the blow she did expect didn't come and then lifted her head to look at him.

"What's your name?" he asked, almost out of breath as he asked that question.

He knew what she called herself now. He'd seen her name tag. It was probably the last question he sure as hell wanted to be asking from her, but he just wanted to hear it from her own lips. There was a small portion inside of him, that seedling of hope that had woken up at her return, that wanted to hear her slip and say her name was Beth.

Letting her have a choice, barely holding onto her wrist anymore, he let his fingers rest on her skin, wanting it to burn him as a punishment, he waited for her to pull her arm free. She didn't move, her palm laying on his wrist like it was meant to be there, and instead just looked up at him.

It struck him hard on that particular moment, looking at her for the first time like she had never been gone, to realize how much she had changed, or how much they had changed her. She hadn't been keen to confrontation before, but now she was timid, almost to the point where she would disappear in the background like a ghost.

She would have never been this timid, this eager to stay hidden. But as he kept looking at her he witnessed her gaze softening into that trusting look she'd always had when she was with him.

"I'm Rose," it was a mere whisper, but her blue eyes were now twinkling, and not because she was afraid, but because he had asked.

"Daryl," he replied, with a nod, and then let go of her arm since she had not made a move to pull her arm free, "I'd appreciate some clean clothes, thanks," he added quietly, trying his best to make it sound sincere, thankful, safe.

He didn't expect her to say anything. She looked at her with curiosity, and if she had recognized his name, her face showed no telltale signs of that. _If_ she had lost her memory completely after the shooting, she didn't need to be terminated.

He bit his cheek for his thoughts. There was always that off chance that she'd regain her memories at some point. The people who had hired him to do this wouldn't take that chance just because he said so, or because she _might_ never remember again.

Maybe he could figure out how to get out of this fucking mess, pretend that he had done his job, make sure she was safe and alright, and get himself off the hit list and disappear.

 _Yeah, maybe._

He had nothing to lose. She could still have a life albeit without him.

He felt his chest tightening, aching, more physical than it should have been, and bile rising to his throat. He would let her go. He didn't want to be the one to burst her world into shards of piercing glass. He didn't want to be the reason she would not be safe anywhere.

At the same time, though, he wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and beg for her forgiveness for what had happened, and what he had become, but he knew he had not right to drag her into this.

Because he wasn't important, only her. Only Beth.

~::~

She pushed past him and watched carefully from the corners of her eyes, as he picked up the hoodie she had set aside for him on the couch early when she woke up.

He looked even worse in the harsh light of the morning. His eye was swollen, black and blue. His entire face seemed to be swollen along with his eyes, and the gash on his forehead made the skin angry red.

 _Daryl. Why is that name so familiar?_

He grunted from pain as he began taking off the blood soaked shirt, and she felt her entire body twitch, desperate to take a step and help him.

 _Why do I keep having flashbacks and dreams of a man named Daryl? Who is he?_

He had to fall down onto the couch before she took a step closer, and picked up the clothes from the couch. She offered her hand to him, gesturing that she'd help him up, but when his fingers touched hers, she flinched.

" _What do you want from me, girl? Ain't boyfriend material!"_ Whoever it had been, had shouted it at her face. She still couldn't name that man, or see his face, but the difference this time was that she was almost certain she knew this man in her cabin.

"There," she mumbled confused, "You can try them on. I hope they'll fit."

He nodded, a pseudo smile tugging the corner of his lips and not even sure what made him suddenly smirk like that. It made him quickly turn his head away and force his face to a blank slate.

But the way she smiled she had noted that smirk. It should have made her uncomfortable, but it didn't. Instead, it felt sweet all of a sudden, coming from this man, and yet, she couldn't explain why was that.

What in fact made her slightly uncomfortable, and even blush, was when the man finally pulled the disgustingly sticky shirt over his head quite unabashed, groaned out loud and then limped into the bathroom.

She saw a glimpse of a broad back, a tattoo decorating his right shoulder blade and old scars crisscrossing his back.

 _His scars!_

Her thought brought back a memory that was as bleached as the freshly fallen snow. It was floating there, just out of reach, impossible to get a hold of it.

" _Ain't gotta worry 'bout them, girl. They don't hurt no more."_

The bathroom door closing behind him sent her hurrying fast into the kitchenette, and resting her palms against the countertop, she sighed and closed her eyes, squeezing them shut. A set of images flashed through her mind. A man she didn't recognize pulled his shirt over his head, smiling at her and walking away but glancing back at her and saying something.

The images were blurry at best and she couldn't figure out what he was saying, but she could swear that the man in her mind had similar scars on his back as the man currently occupying her bathroom.

It could not be a coincidence.

Her dogs jogged around her, crowding the kitchenette, impatiently waiting for their own food and shaking her out of her hazy memories.

"Alright, alright! Spoiled, ragtag pack of dogs you are," she said, chuckling a little, as she reached to pick up four large bowls, and then proceeded to pull the giant sack of kibbles closer and dug in.

She was finished with filling the bowls with dry dog food when the man, Daryl, emerged from the bathroom. With trembling hands she turned around, and began fiddling with the coffee maker.

"If you're hungry, I can make you something to eat," she said.

She didn't want to sound so frightened or young, but that's how her voice came out.

She frowned at herself, and bit the inside of her cheek roughly, before she turned to face the man. Immediately she felt slightly more at ease, because he looked so very different after a change of clothes. She felt heat on her cheeks, and chuckled nervously. The whole situation at that moment felt too familiar and she was at loss how to proceed.

"'s fine, whatever you got," he said finally, and Rose could hear the hesitation in his voice.

She nodded, pursing her lips, and turning to check her fridge.

"Did ya see a car where you picked me up?" he asked, sitting onto the chair by her small table. He turned to look at her, twisting his body, and flinched in discomfort and pain.

She felt her hands twitch, and nearly taking a step towards the man, wanting to help. Her brows knitted together as she tried to remember if she had seen a car, and when she did, she shook her head.

"No, no, I don't think so. It was raining, though. But I only saw you crawling from the shoulder of the road," she replied honestly. The rain and the darkness were enough to keep anyone seeing much, but her focus had really been this man and his severe injuries at the time.

His lips curled in a flare of frustration, as his head bent down and he cursed under his breath, before he once again turned to face her.

"Could ya take me there?" he asked.

The question made Rose break into a smile and she nodded.

"Yes."

~::~

It took them longer than he had hoped to get on the road, and he grew impatient after a while.

Despite the peacefulness of the lone cabin in the woods, his leg bounced to the beat of his throbbing wounds, and he chewed aggressively his thumb nail. But instead of hurrying her up he just kept watching at her cleaning her kitchen and washing her dishes.

His urge to smoke threw him out of his mind and his own thoughts, and he rescinded into reconnaissance mode. He observed subtly the items on shelves, on the walls, even gave the dogs a once over. They weren't interested in him, and instead shifted restlessly from spot to spot waiting for their mistress to let them out and feed them. He couldn't figure out what was wrong inside the cabin, and it started to bug him, and that made him forget his surroundings for a second, and remain cautiously quiet.

His silence backfired on him after a while, though. Daryl was startled out from his thoughts when he heard her beginning to hum a small tune while puttering in her small kitchenette. His stomach lurched, and it made him uneasy in a fraction of a second because of the sudden feeling of panic that took over him. It forced him to stand up, thank her curtly for the breakfast and then walk outside as fast as he could.

Squeezing his hand into fist he leaned against the wall by the door, drawing deep breaths and calming himself down a notch. Her singing and humming were something he had missed, and the continuous melodies he still could remember had been his constant companion of a ghost of the past in the prison. He had taken them as his punishment, her voice daunting him in that tortuously small cell, never forgiving him, or allowing him to forgive himself. The flipside of it all was that her singing had always been something he missed greatly.

That was what now made the cabin walls to close in on him just as he hobbled out of the door. He had nothing to lose, not anymore, but the cabin's walls closing in and the sound of her singing were enough to draw him back into that prison cell.

He missed himself grumbling about a song that got stuck in his head after she had been singing it all day and he missed, even though he would furiously deny it, the way Rick always groaned when Daryl went on to hum the same tunes at work. And, what he missed the most of all, was how she would kiss his cheek and chuckle because she always knew he never wanted her to stop singing.

He felt the ache on his stomach beginning to swell and spread. He grabbed the banister and slid down onto the steps of the porch and clutched his stomach. It felt tight like there was a fire inside of his gut, and it made his insides balloon up. The continuous, throbbing pain made him feel shaky, and the general dull ache that resonated throughout his body, arms and fingers made him irritated, and out of focus, out of the line of sight.

Frowning, he glanced down at his fingers, staring at the white tape she had used to prop the index and middle fingers of his straight and together, onto the third finger. As he tried to wiggle them the pain that shot through his nerves made him wince and he had to agree to what he already knew. They were definitely broken.

Fuck, if things hadn't escalated quickly. Actually, things had escalated from bad to worse the minute he had called Rick.

He grunted, pulling his cell from the pocket of his new pants and quickly proceeded to crack open the back of it. It was a cheap, plastic-y burner phone anyway. He detached the battery, and then disposed the chip, breaking the small piece of plastic and metal between his fingers. It made a cracking sound, and split in half, damaging the circuit on it irreversibly. Placing the battery and the bent chip on the wooden deck of the porch, he roughly bend the phone making it yield and crack, and finally break the screen as well as the casing. His broken fingers and muscles on his arms screeched in violent opposition, but he ignored the pain. He'd have to ditch the pieces soon, preferably far away from this place.

He berated himself for answering the call that morning, and he should have disposed the phone immediately when he had made the call to Rick, when he got beaten, or at least the minute he woke up that morning. After being roughed up, and stabbed, he had been too dazed to think straight and that proved to be the root of his problem at that moment.

If, and it was a pretty big if, they had been tracking him through his phone, they already knew where he was, and he knew it was only a matter of time when _they_ would come crashing through the door of the cabin. He hadn't changed his phone in three months, mostly because of this current assignment, which at that very moment was his downfall.

He needed a new phone, preferably a burner, he needed to call to Rick as soon as possible, and he needed to figure the fuck out what to do with Beth.

He had been given all the necessary facts he had needed of his intended targets. Instead doing what he was hired to do, he had found Beth alive, and now he had to decide if he should tell her or not. In all honesty, he couldn't make that decision no matter how much he wanted to. Because now it was her life versus his life in the balance and h knew he would give his own in order to saver hers.

But, if he died, who would protect her?

"Jesus fucking Christ," he swore out loud, scoffing and then looking over his shoulder at the blonde haired woman. His thoughts were speed racing through his mind trying to do some quantum mathematics in order to solve the situation he was currently in.

He could fake her death.

He'd done it once before. Not for her, obviously, but he knew what it took, and he had the contacts.

He could contact the US Marshals, and get them to ensure her safety however they saw fit, even if it meant getting arrested again.

He could proceed and finish his job, the one he had been hired to do. The mere thought of that option churned his gut. If he was forced to kill her, he'd kill himself by doing that.

He could tell her about the job, she could call the cops on him. She would do that, if she knew what he had become in his grief and anger. She would do it, and she would hate him.

He looked down at his hands again, drawing in a faltering breath. The bruises on his skin were now getting more prominent, and the throbbing in his left hand, as well as in his broken fingers, was close to something awful. Daryl curled his right hand into a fist, flexing his fingers and watching how the skin and the scrapes and the scabbing wounds stretched and wound tight.

He hissed at the pain that shot through his arm, but ignored it stubbornly.

He had always worked with his hands. Ever since he could remember. He'd been doing his best to make ends meet when he was still a kid in school by working at a garage and at a lumber yard.

He hadn't shied away from any job for that matter, even if it meant that he was hired to pound away some poor bastard's face. Better that guy than him, anyway. His current situation with the bruises and injuries just about proved that sentiment.

He couldn't even feel sorry for those he beat up or killed, he couldn't even feel guilty over what he did for living. Not really. Not anymore. He had put his emotions aside for the past five years, and been the cold and skilled hitman the people he had dealt with seemed to have wanted.

But truthfully, sometimes, in the wee hours of the night when he couldn't get out of the bed, but couldn't go back to sleep either, he found himself thinking if he had enough of a conscience left. He felt bad sometimes, but he never backed down from a job.

"Admiring your bruises?" her voice asked from next to him, and he turned to look at the blonde woman. There was a slight spike in her tone, familiar and playful even. It reminded Daryl of the time when Rose had been Beth instead. He wanted so much to tell her the truth.

She carried four bowls of dog food in her hands, and stepped down onto the gravel yard, smile tugging the corners of her lips. When their eyes met, she bit her lip, like she had realized she had said too much.

He scoffed, more to himself than at her. Staring down at the greying floorboards of the porch, he chuckled and shook his head, realizing that even right now she would draw the longer straw and win. Because there still was hope.

Beth was still in there, buried under the layers of this new woman, under the life of Rose.

Daryl lifted his head and looked directly at her. She seemed to look anywhere but in his eyes, but when he caught a glimpse of her eyes she didn't avert her gaze again. There was a moment, a fleeting desperate moment, where he thought he saw her flinch, but she breathed steadily, her stance straight and relaxed.

"Nah," he grumbled, picking his cuticles.

"I'm… I didn't mean - -," she stammered, but he shook his hand and smiled at her. He didn't want to go on about this matter. He didn't know how to explain to her that he knew her.

"'s fine," Daryl replied, interrupting her, ignoring the awkward moment completely. He didn't want to dwell in it, because he feared he wasn't strong enough to keep this secret from her.

His gaze drifted down, noticing that she had changed her outfit. Black, loose fitted pants, that hung on her hips just right and a white, flimsy off shoulders shirt, showing off a strip of her taut stomach. Her skin was just as pale and creamy as it had always been, making him bite his cheek to not to blurt out something stupid.

He watched sheepishly as she kneeled down, making that white shirt hike up. It made him roll his eyes, and then squeeze them shut quickly. He turned his head away from her, and tried to focus on her dark green Ford truck. It was better if he kept his eyes on something inanimate, something that wouldn't make him think all the times he'd touched her, and maybe risk blurting out something about her real identity

A lot of good closing his eyes did, though. He could still see her face in front of him, smiling at him like she had always done, and making him weak in the knees.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes, watching her place the bowls of dog food on the ground, and then standing up, whistling out loud; calling for her dogs to come and eat. She had wanted a cat or two before. Now she had four dogs; four dogs that came a-running. Only one of them seemed to be a purebred. The other three were scruffy and big.

He stared at them, all of them had big paws, messy fur and tongues hanging out of their mouths and tails wagging as they ran for their food. The ground trembled at the thudding of big paws. They had been roaming around the cabin all morning ever since she had let them out, and the approaching of the dogs looked now very closely to a stampede.

They stopped appropriately fluttering and whining around her, Rose - no, Beth - and obediently waited for her command to be allowed to eat. She petted each and every one of them, weaving between them, and getting out of the furry wall they had created before giving them a sign to proceed with the eating.

She quickly walked into the pen next to the cabin, and opened a tap to pour in a whole trough full of fresh water for the dogs. He hadn't seen a creek, lake or a pond anywhere near, and he frowned. Maybe she had a well of some sort, or maybe the rugged looking log cabin was indeed hooked up with the County's water system. It wasn't really important for him to know, there might have been a lake or river beyond the trees for all he knew. But it was indeed very intriguing to see her live like he had lived back in Georgia years ago. It had been part of his job, making observations. Those little buggers had kept him alive.

He stood up from the steps and stuffed his hands in his pockets, only slightly wincing from the pain, and watched Rose walk out of the pen, ready to close the wire gate.

"It's just you and your dogs?" he asked, looking up at the trees, before turning to look at her again.

Even though she was just about to answer, he never got an answer from her. A bullet, fired from a rifle, whizzed past their heads.


	6. My Love stay strong and you'll do well

_**WARNING! This chapter contains a graphic description of a fight. Blood and gore and death happens. Proceed at your own risk.**_

He heard it before he managed to make the connection in his mind; the metallic _clink_ sound of a bullet being fired through a silencer of a sniper rifle. The faint whirring sound the piece of aerodynamically forged metal made as it flew through the air before it broke into a loud snap that echoed in the woods.

It wasn't like his hearing was 20/20, not anymore, damn he was getting old, but he had heard that same sound too many times in his life to be mistaken now.

The Drill Instructor of his basic training had treated them like they were nothing but a bunch of simpletons, but Daryl had no disillusions in the matter that it had saved his life more than once.

" _Learn the sounds a bullet makes, learn the sounds of the weapons! That's probably going to save your miserable lives, you maggots!"_

The Instructor had not been much of a people person, but he had known how to train Marines and Scout Snipers.

This time, when he heard that awful familiar sound, it made him lunge into action on his own from sheer muscle memory. It wasn't just his life on the line, it was hers as well, and although he would have gladly give his life to protect Beth, his will to live was greater.

His body slammed against the blonde haired woman, and in a fraction of a second he heard the wind being kicked out of her lungs as he pinned her against his chest, arms wrapping around her and then twisting his body, between her and the shooter, as he threw them both on the ground. He landed on his side, his elbow dug into the pebbles on the ground, and every every nerve ending in him screamed from pain. The skin on his arm was probably grated to shreds, but what pained him more was the feeling in his gut, and realization that he had definitely torn his stitches.

A bullet, a high caliber round, hit the ground behind them only inches away. He stared at the hole on the ground, gritting his teeth together and cursing that he couldn't check up on the bullet itself; it had probably been shredded beyond recognition by bare eye anyway. Not knowing the range they were shot from he guessed it was either .338 or .308 caliber rounds, and it irritated him to no end, since it gave a far wider distance, weapons range and possible shooter.

She let out a whimper, his attention quickly drawing back on her.

The dirt and pebbles had dug into her skin with force, just like with him despite him trying to be the one hitting the ground first. Her blue eyes were dilated with fear, panic and pain and she tilted her head back enough to stare at him in a mixture of emotions.

He shifted, trying to sit up, and her body stiffened immediately. She tried to push him off of her, away from her, but he ignored her feeble attempts and brought his arms around her shoulders, her palms cradling her head, and pressing her awkwardly down onto the ground, shielding her with his body.

"Don't move, don't move, don't move," he rumbled into her ear, as three more shots echoed and three bullets hit the ground, closer to them than the first one. Dirt on the ground spewed up as the bullets dug in. Daryl cursed, and kept holding her, looking around him, trying to spot from which direction the bullets were being fired from. He wasn't making much out of it, though, the forest was probably the worst place to be a sitting duck for a sniper.

The four dogs Beth had locked in the large outdoor cage whined and paced back and forth by the fence. Gritting his teeth together he had to hope that the bastard shooting at them wasn't going to target the dogs. She wouldn't stay put if he was gonna start shooting the poor animals.

He drew in a deep breath, lifting his head up just enough to try and see the shooter better, but he was apparently shit out of luck and saw absolutely nothing but the trees.

"Stay put, don't move!" he growled an order into Beth's ear, she stayed down, in a foetal position, and whimpering.

Daryl groaned, rolling onto his back, and ignored the pain in his abdomen. He tried to get into a better viewing position when a bullet hit the ground next to his foot, and he cursed out loud. One third of an inch and he'd have two toes instead of five.

"The road,"he mumbled, and peeked from under the truck at the slope that was the only drivable road to the cabin. If the bastard shooting at them was lazy enough, he would probably have chosen a perch near that dirt road.

He clambered up onto his knees, and grabbed Beth's hand, pulling the frightened and tense woman with him, as they both crouched down behind the truck, backs against the rear wheel. She squeaked when four more bullets whirred past them, and one of them hitting the bulk of the flatbed.

"Fuck," he growled. They needed that fucking truck in working condition to get the hell out of dodge from the cabin.

"Stay down!" he barked a less than a courteous order once more, ensuring she would definitely stay down.

Luckily, she did as he told her, and stayed down, covering her ears, her head ducked down, leaning against the wheel, and with each hollow snap the bullets made flying through the air, and each eerie clink and reasonably loud thump of a bullet digging into something around them made her whimper terrified.

He swivelled around, leaned his back against the front door of the truck, and craned his neck enough to peek through the windshield of the truck. He hoped to get a quick glance of whoever was shooting at them, or at least figure out where they were had their perch at but only got more and more frustrated when he didn't see anything useful.

"What's going on?!" she cried out loud, looking up at him now, when he turned around again, still kneeling on the soggy ground, doubled over.

They stared each other for a moment, until he frowned and averted her gaze.

He had no clue what to answer to her. He bit his cheek hard, berating himself for being a lousy liar when it came to her. He would have to explain this to her _somehow_ , but this wasn't the the right time or the right place.

The situation just proved that he had to figure out some kind of a contingency plan to get her to the US Marshals safely.

"Well?" she demanded from him, crouching down and holding her palms over her ears.

"Just stay down. 'm gonna figure this out!" Daryl grunted back at her, buying some time just in case.

The sound of a bullet hitting the metal cage of the dogs alarmed her. She let her palms fall down from her ears and she nearly managed to dart up, before Daryl caught her.

His reflexes had probably been better at some point but he managed to grab her by her arm and yank her back down. Cursing under his breath of her sudden stupidity, he glared irritated at the distance from the truck to the cage. She would have ran straight over there and gotten herself shot. It made his heart skip one or two beats and blood boil from repressed anger.

"This ain't no joke, girl! Stay down! Someone's shootin' at ya," Daryl snapped, nodding awkwardly towards the woods vaguely.

"My dogs!" she protested and pointed at the cage, where the four dogs paced and darted back and forth barking and whining. She saw Atka and Desna snarling, hackles raised up, and ears pressed flat against their back. Nanuk, her little, gentle bear, was closer to the dog houses and Qilaq stood in between the three.

"Then don't run to them!"

It was the only thing he could come up with amidst of it all, before he pressed her firmly against the tire and told her hastily to stay still. Giving a once over at the dog cage, he decided that the four dogs wouldn't be added to the list of things that were already stolen from Beth.

Obviously, staying put and not making themselves a target any more than they already were, was a good enough of an advice. With every movement behind the truck a bullet or two hit the ground or her truck.

The sniper's scope was probably magnified, or the most high tech piece of equipment he had, since the person didn't seem to have much of an aim. With this realization, Daryl couldn't count on the shooter running out of bullets. If they were half as good as the worst hunter in the world that douche had probably a bag full of ammunition with them.

Internally swearing once again how sinfully easy it was to purchase guns and ammunition in bulk. All kinds of Speedy Jacksons were able to buy that shit and then traipse around the country shooting things. This guy was tiptoeing the line of buying weapons and not knowing how to use them with hsi rather pisspoor talent of aiming at things.

Convinced he was dealing with an amateur bounty hunter or at least one very fresh at it.

When Daryl was hired to do this job he'd received one outrageous payment for it, which is why there probably was a fuckton of money in change for the lives Beth and Daryl right about now.

He chewed his bottom lip, and picked up a stone. He tossed it further away from the truck, watching it land on the ground. He counted in his head to five, when he finally heard that _clink-whirr-snap_ sound and the bullet hitting the ground just a little bit shy of the stone.

Irrationally, he thought how he wouldn't have missed that easy of a mark, and scoffed. The shooter was slow, taking his time to shoot, but still missing a stone that wasn't even a moving target.

Sometimes it took finesse and preparation, as well as taking into account the wind and possible shifting of the target and every possible little detail there was, but sometimes all it took was to point and shoot.

But, distracting the shooter gave him enough time to peek again from behind the truck, trying to spot the shooter this time, and again, was resorted to damning this place to hell.

The trees blocked his line of sight beyond them. Anything that could have even remotely been the shooter's perch just didn't cut it, or was hidden by the trees. Despite all of that, it gave him enough ideas of the possible places that the shooter could have been, and using his own preference in such a case, he managed to eliminate few of them.

It still left him with too many options and Daryl was far from being pleased.

"Think, dammit," he growled at himself, slamming his fist against the ground.

It made Beth jerk back, and look at him with a disapproving and frightened frown.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

She didn't remember him and she didn't remember that no matter how angry Daryl had been at the world or at himself, she had never needed to be worried that he would hurt her.

 _Goddamned jerk,_ he thought, berating himself. He needed to be more considerable of her, if he ever hoped to have her trust again. But most of all, he had to get her out of there alive.

"People from the town know I live here," she whispered, "They wouldn't just come over and start shooting at random."

Daryl nodded in confirmation.

The small town seemed to have been a perfect place to hide her in plain sight. Nobody paid any attention to her, or the town for that matter. Except for now. He had no reason to question the townspeople's moral standards. As far as he knew they were all just John and Jane Smith from Small Town, America, and so mediocre that it hurt.

"Is it a hunter? Maybe an out of town - -," she started.

"Dixon!"

The shout interrupted her, and Daryl jerked his head up, peeking through the truck window. Struggling to recognize the voice, he felt his stomach drop at the realization that he had been right. Others had come after them.

"Dixon, come out!" again the shooter yelled.

He crawled forward a little bit, dropping onto his side, and peering from underneath the front of the truck, letting his gaze sweep over the forest that opened around them. He refrained from answering to the person, and instead, just awaited.

They would have to outsmart the shooter, because right now, he literally had the upper hand.

"Come out, Daryl! I can even do ya a solid and let you walk outta here!"

Daryl bit his lip, glancing at Beth who was now reeling. He quickly shook his head and reached over, gently touching her arm. She jumped and then chewed her bottom lip, before looking at Daryl and nodding, still slightly startled.

"You and your brother can head over to Mexico then! Or Timbuktu! Or wherever the hell trash of your kind go hide from the law!"

"The law?" Daryl growled quietly, "Fuck that. Ain't hiding from no law."

Neither was Merle, to be fair. He'd said to Daryl a long time ago that he would rather die than go back to jail. That was true, and Daryl had already made peace with it. He knew if the cops were after Merle, he'd let them shoot him, or drive over a cliff rather than get arrested. It wasn't pretty, but it was hard to sway Merle Dixon's mind once it was set.

But, there was something familiar in his voice.

"Lemme do the job!" the shooter continued, "You ain't got no more trust with him!"

"R-Rose," he stammered, still struggling to call her by her new name, "Don't listen to that shithead. Swear 'm gonna tell ya what's going on but right now I gotta get us both out of here."

She stared right back into his eyes a moment. Then, there was a faint, almost unnoticeable, smile and she nodded her head despite frowning.

"Ya hear me, Dixon!? You ain't got no more trust! He put out a word! And you know there are more than just me coming! And them guys comin'... imagine what they might do to the pretty blondie you're trying to protect!"

Daryl's eyes darkened with inexplicable anger. He knew or he had good enough of an idea what men like that would do.

But it was the voice of the shooter, the way he talked, that made Daryl recognize his voice.

Jim Hobart. That fucking swizzle-stick.

He had worked with that moron once, and that was one time too much. The man was mental. Not in a violent or deviant way, but in a way that he believed that horses were from outer space and everyone was after him. In reality, at least every other person he came across with or he was determined that they were out to get him, quite possibly was.

"Why should I let you do anythin'?!" Daryl roared back.

Goading the man out of his hiding place was his best chance in this. He turned to look at Beth, and pressed his finger on his own lips to signal her to be quiet. She nodded, eyes wide, but remaining quiet.

"Cos you ain't gonna get outta here alive if you don't!" Jim's reply came with an annoying glee, and it grated on Daryl's nerves. Jim seemed to have made himself believe that Daryl would just walk away, give this one to him, and not look back. He didn't expect resistance.

"Who says I ain't gonna get out alive?" Daryl grumbled, trying to sound dubious. He had to buy some time with Jim.

Shifting, he glanced down at the wheels and the banged-up hubcaps. Spots of rust, dents and a barely noticeable crack decorated the discs but it made him grin with a plan.

"Well, ya gotta make do what ya have," he said in a hushed tone, and began working the hubcap, prying it loose. His knuckles scraped against the shit and grime that was stuck in between the front wheel and the metal disc.

Beth stared at him wildly, her hands trembling, frowning a little, as she tried to get Daryl to explain it to her. He nodded, gestured towards the other tire, and its hubcap.

"See if ya can get it loose," he whispered.

"Uh, okay," she mumbled, giving him a funny look, and then looking at the hubcap. She shifted in the spot she was crouched and turned around. He watched for a second how her fingers ran across the grimy surface of the hubcap, before turning his head away and yanking his metal disc off the wheel.

Grunting with success he wiped some of the muck off and weighing it in his hands. It felt sturdy enough to provide at least some form of leveling in the otherwise unfair situation.

He knew Jim was armed with a sniper rifle, but he had always been a bit of a packrat and Daryl had to accept that he might be carrying a handgun and a knife as well. He scoffed and added two or three more guns and knives into his mental picture of Jim's lanky ass. Jim Hobart was a man who trusted in the amount of weapons he carried.

He knew the bastard's weaknesses, but the problem was that he knew Daryl's as well. Not that he had many. He'd injured his knee on duty, and he'd been thrown off his bike in an accident where his shoulder had been dislocated. He had a titanium eye socket from that same accident and few screws and a metal plate holding his skull in some kind of a form.

Physical weaknesses were easily to overcome. He'd been taught that during all the phases of his training. But then, he turned his head to look at Beth, who now finally yanked her hubcap off, falling on her behind on the ground. Her fingers were equally mucky, but she smiled feebly when she handed the flat piece of something resembling metal to Daryl.

Emotional weaknesses were harder. He had learned that definitely the hardest way possible after the hospital incident. He would have confessed the murder of JFK and alien landings if they had used Beth against him.

"Thanks," he grumbled, and frowned immediately. The hubcap she had pried off with great deal of difficulty wasn't made out of metal as sturdy as the front wheel hubcap. It felt lighter, bendier, even weak, but he decided to adjust his inkling of a plan accordingly.

The phase 3 training operation had left a group of recruits out in the woods for an unspecified time period and he'd been forced to get creative with his supplies and specifically with his weapons.

If joining the United States Marine Corps hadn't saved his life when he joined at 18, it was sure as hell doing that right now.

"Rose," Daryl whispered, nearly biting his tongue when he called her ' _Rose'_ like it was everyday normal, "Listen to me. Stay low!"

Grabbing her by her elbow and tugging her gently towards him, catching her attention, "Stay behind the truck, out of his line of sight. No matter what happens, keep the truck between you and him! I owe ya one, and ya gettin' out of here alive, promise ya!"

"What do you mean - - ?" she began but Jim's voice echoed again, making her shrink behind Daryl in a hurry.

"She ain't nothing to you, man!"

Daryl scoffed at that.

"The boss wants to get rid of her! No witness, no case! It's just one girl! Just lemme do it and you and your brother can disappear!"

Beth gave him a glance, and Daryl could see how she was weighing in her options. He wouldn't blame her if she wanted to call the Sheriff, but that meant they would have to get here and not get killed by a Swizzle Stick.

He groaned and turned to face her once again, "Listen to me, girl. He's after us both. Nothin' he says can be trusted," he said, looking around, biting his cheek hard enough to taste blood in his mouth.

"I don't understand," she hissed back, wiping nervously her palms onto her denim clad thighs.

This time she looked nearly as angry as she had when she had been clambering up from that godawful ditch he had found her when they had met.

"Who is he?!" she gritted her teeth and growled at him.

"'m gonna explain it when we get the fuck out of here," Daryl replied, "Ain't gonna let nothin' happen to you."

"What could possibly…?" she tried to ask, but he ignored her, drawing a deep breath, picking up the metal hubcap and standing up on his knees. He lifted the shirt enough to stuff the large disc under the waist of his pants to his back. The cold metal scraped his skin as he shifted, but he tried his best to ignore it. Then, he lowered the shirt down again. Clambering up on his feet, he looked at Beth reassuringly as he took a firm hold of the plastic hubcap she had pried off.

"B-But…" she tried to protest, but he interrupted her again.

"Stay down. 'm goin' to do somethin' really stupid, but 's the only thing to keep us alive, okay?" he hastily explained. She squeaked softly, but stayed on the ground leaning against the wheel, her eyes following him as he stood up straighter.

He drew in a deep breath, and shouted out loud.

"Don't shoot! 'm coming out!" Daryl shouted out loud, and stood up slowly, raising his arms up in the air, clutching the hubcap, "Let's talk about this!"

It took several minutes until the man responsible for the attack walked out from the trees. He wore green and black camouflage, his face painted with green and black paint, and he carried a large rifle, which looked like a homemade version of Daryl's own sniper rifle, he'd cannibalized other weapons and built his own, making it look decrepit. It was shoddy work at best.

He arched his eyebrow at the sight. Jim Hobart had always been a poor man's version of Daryl. That Swizzle Stick had been shadowing Daryl for years, and he'd ended up in the second place too many times to count. Apparently, this was his chance to payback.

Daryl held his arms up at shoulder height, and squinted his eyes at the annoying, shit eating grin that was plastered on the other man's face.

"Whatcha gonna do with the hubcap? Drop it," Jim ordered, as he turned the barrel of the weapon to point at Daryl.

The thing with Jim was that he took things a bit too intensely. He wanted to be the best, and he wanted to be revered, but more often than not, he ended up just licking his wounds and crawling back into a hole that he called home.

But, this was something Daryl knew, and he had anticipated Jim's twichiness. Well ahead of Jim, Daryl complied, and dropped the dirty plastic disc on the ground with a weak thud.

Still keeping his hands raised at shoulder height, he pushed them slightly forward, palms towards Jim, and stepped between him and Beth, in as non-threatening manner as he could, showing that he was bearing no arms. He wasn't if he was completely honest. A hubcap hidden under his shirt wasn't really a 'weapon'.

Hobart stepped closer, suspicious of Daryl, as always. Daryl knew it was because he had not given Jim enough breaks before or after his prison sentence, and he clearly remembered every single one of those times. Jim sneered at the broody man, before gesturing with the barrel of his rifle to turn around.

"Slowly. Don't want no mistakes, right?"

Daryl turned slowly around as ordered, and glanced at Beth when his back was facing at Jim. She had moved from her spot, at the rear wheel, and was now standing behind the battered truck with her eyes wide and clutching the tailgate, her knuckles white. He nodded at her in reassurance, and to keep her from panicking out, and she seemed to draw strength from him. He kept his face broody when he slowly turned to face Jim again.

"I think it's the first time I've had Daryl Fucking Dixon unarmed in front of me," Jim Hobart gloated, and grinned again.

"Yeah, well…," Daryl growled, his hands still at shoulder level, but now, slowly lowering them as he took few steps in his place. He wanted to say something to the bastard but decided against it. Instead, he allowed the turd to enjoy his feeble victory.

"You know what," Jim continued, lowering his voice, and grinning like a madman he truly was, "I don't think there's any reason for me to keep you alive."

"Sure, whatever you say, Swizzle Stick," Daryl grumbled, turning his right palm around and flipping him the finger. With that, he lowered his arms slowly all the way down.

"Uh-uh," the man with the rifle snapped quickly, and shook his head.

Daryl froze in place, huffing slightly, and then taking few nervous steps, making sure his body was still between Beth and Jim at all the time. He grit his teeth, feeling the muscles in his jaw straining, and took in the bearings. Digging through those dusty brain cells that he had tried to forget and decompose as useless and disturbing, he had to try to recall all the times he had been forced to cooperate with Jim. Yeah, he was certain he could take the man down. But first, he needed to distract the turd enough to let that steely grip of his paper mache rifle go.

"Look, man," Jim began, lowering the barrel, making Daryl grin only barely, "I ain't taking no pleasure in this," Jim babbled. He was nervous and twitchy, not a good quality in a hitman.

"But… I got a job to do. If you had done yours, I wouldn't be here," he continued to chitter, almost - _almost_ \- apologetically. He tilted his head enough to look past Daryl at Beth. It made Daryl hiss, and step in front of him fast.

"Ya really think it's just you here?" Daryl asked, it was more or less rhetorical question, and he wasn't expecting an answer, but an answer he was given.

"I'M HERE FIRST!" Jim shouted angrily. The man had the look of a petulant child on his face, and Daryl shook his head. The man had seemingly escalated from the last time they had met, and this time his mania was getting the upper hand in him.

"Was it an open invite?" Daryl continued, keeping his voice low.

"What's it to you?! I'm here now! Ain't no one else! I got the unicorn!" Jim hissed, spitting as he spoke. He referred Beth and him to a unicorn, something that was nothing but a myth or figment of someone's imagination. People had believed that she was dead, so the comparison seemed to be accurate.

"What's the price for that?" Daryl ignored Jim's tantrum.

The man chewed his cheek, and glared at Daryl, clearly trying to calculate the pros and cons of revealing too much.

"A cool 20 rock," Jim muttered, and watched Daryl's face give out a hint of surprise for a fraction of a blink.

"20 million?" Daryl wanted a confirmation, as a new plan began brewing in his mind. He could use that 20 million, he definitely had enough expenses that required money.

"Yeah, and I'mma gonna get it!" Jim growled, clutching the rifle again, "Call the pretty princess over here so - -," Jim began, with that fucking annoying smug grin on his face, and then made a sound akin to a long sigh, as Daryl's shoulder slammed against his stomach, punching the breath out of him.

The Frankenstein rifle of Jim's slipped away from his hands, and he grunted as his body slammed on the rubble on the ground with Daryl's body landing on top of him, and his elbow hitting Jim's stomach. Daryl brought his hands on Jim's throat, beginning to choke the tall, crazed shooter, as the man tried to wrap his fingers around Daryl's wrists.

When he finally managed to grab a hold of Daryl's wrists, his fingernails dug into his skin and made him hiss out loud. It wasn't something that would phase him from a fight, though. He'd gone through a lot more just in the basic training. He'd gone through far more shit while being deployed as well.

"If ya make it out of this alive, you tell the Governor; there ain't no place on this planet to run and hide, if anything, _anything_ , happens to Beth," Daryl hissed at Jim, glaring down at the man he had literally by his throat. His voice was quiet enough for Beth not to hear his words. He wasn't going to damage her psyche any more than the attack of Jim's had already done.

Jim grunted, trying to pry off Daryl's hands before he chortled out something akin to a laughter. Jim twisted his body, Daryl's knee pinning him down, pressing into his side, and the former cop partly laying on the ground, partly kneeling there. When Jim shifted, it created enough of space for him to roll around completely, and kneeing Daryl on his leg. In retaliation, Daryl kneed Jim coldly in his ribs. The shooter howled out loud with pain, and again moved, rotating himself while clutching his side, and leaning far over to his left. It forced Daryl to follow suit, but it also gave Jim enough of a momentum to throw Daryl off him.

His stomach began to ache, throbbing from the strain and movement, as did his broken fingers that had taken contact with Jim's arm, neck and side.

Both men clambered up swiftly, grunting and teetering for a second to gain their balance back. Daryl was the first to recover from their smackdown on the ground and he was the first one to throw a punch at Jim who didn't manage to react in time and took Daryl's knuckles slamming brutally at his jaw. It made Daryl's entire right hand ache something awful, the nerve endings screaming under the pain, but the only thought he had at that point was to beat the swizzle-stick of snipers into pulp.

Jim swirled around and threw aside his heavy utility belt and scoffed angrily, as he rubbed his jaw. Each step Jim took, Daryl compensated fast, and kept his own body between Jim and Beth. Sand and pebbles on the ground whirled around their shoes, as they measured each other and plotted for their course of attack.

Suddenly, Jim dropped down on his hands and knees, extending his right leg and kicking Daryl's feet hard. Daryl lost his balance and stumbled forward, allowing Jim to grab him by his shirt and land few punches onto his stomach.

It made Daryl gag, bile rose to his throat. Jim chuckled out loud, and did it again.

Daryl coughed, dry heaving once. That made Beth gasp out loud, and subsequently draw attention of Jim's to her.

It was his one mistake, taking his eyes off Daryl and letting his guard down, to grin smugly and even wink at the woman he was there to shoot.

That fraction of a second made him lose the edge he had in the fight and allowed Daryl to kick him onto his knee and topple the sniper back on the ground.

Daryl dropped down on the ground as well, and grabbed Jim by the throat with one hand. Pressing his knee against the man's rib cage he held Jim Hobart down on the ground. He squirmed in Daryl's steely hold, gasping for air, and trying to push the former detective off.

He punched Daryl few times, before he returned the favor and gave few rough hits back at Jim. When Jim howled out loud from pain, Daryl knew he had cracked the man's rib with the last punch on his side. He used that moment to reach behind, and pull the second, metal, hubcap from underneath his shirt.

"You fucker broke my ribs!" Jim barked, spitting blood and saliva. His face dropped, and he quieted down when he spotted the hubcap in Daryl's hands. Eyeing at his rifle on the ground just few feet away, his squirming changed to more frantic, panicky as the realization hit him, taking over his functions.

"Too bad it looks like ya ain't gonna get out of this alive," Daryl said pointedly.

Rose screeched out loud, covering her mouth as Daryl lifted the hubcap up in the air, and brought it down with sheer brutal force.

She had stared horrified at the macabre dance the two men had been engaged in, hoping that Daryl would win it, but also witnessed how each hit Daryl took made him flinch and stumble a little. She found her own fingers crossed in a prayer, and her mind going through all the possible scenarios that could happen to a man who had been beaten and left for dead just the previous night.

Yet, after each wave of brutal jabs and hits, Daryl returned with fierce retaliation, regardless of his own health and safety. He kept pummeling the tall, lanky man with his fists twice as hard, forcing the man retreat. It perplexed her to no end, because Rose couldn't understand why he would do something like that to himself. Why would he protect a woman he didn't even know?

But, now, as the shooter was on the ground, Daryl looming on top of him and bringing the metal hubcap down with force, she had to turn her head away. It was too much.

Rather than looking at the maiming, she focused her gaze on the shooter's weapon that was laying on the ground.

There was no questions about it, the other man would not gain the upper hand after this. He'd be dead, or severely injured.

 _Paralyzed, dead, or dying_ , she corrected herself. She felt her knees buckle and she had to clutch the tailgate of her truck harder to keep herself from falling down.

Hearing Daryl grunt, making a sound as if he had been kicked in the gut, and then the other man howling out in agony, she twitched with disgust.

The sound of the metal hubcap hitting flesh was sickening. A wet, squelching sound, that echoed unnaturally around them, and in her ears. She already knew it would haunt her in her dreams for nights to come.

" _The dog is old, and sick, Bethy," her father said._

" _Oh, hush, Hershel! Let the child be!" a woman, her mother, scolded her father, and wrapped her arms around the crying child, with golden blonde hair and clutching a toy bunny._

" _Mama! Don't wanna Pippa to go!"_

She recognized the bunny toy and bit her own tongue. She closed her eyes, clutching the tailgate of her truck, and despite her violently screaming flight reaction remained in place. The memory of an old dog and the bunny toy made her even more confused. She had seen her father euthanize the dog she had played with as a child, and that was the reason she was crying. The place, though, it was more of a haunting dream of something she had wanted while growing up, and not a place she had actually lived at.

A full body shudder brought her back to the present, and she opened her eyes. She realized how deafening the silence was. The wind among the branches of the trees and the rapid breathing of Daryl's were the only things she could hear.

Against her better judgment, she started towards Daryl, stumbling from behind the truck, and slowly walking over. Her eyes were on Daryl's back as she approached him carefully. The man was now still, steadying his breathing, kneeling over the equally still body of the shooter.

The sight, Daryl kneeling over the shooter, shouldn't have made her relieved, but against everything she believed in, against all the values in her life, it did.

The man she had saved groaned, as he he shifted, clambering off the shooter's body, and falling down onto the ground panting. He was in pain, but tried to ride through the nerve endings screaming. She could see splatters of blood on his arms, his face and on his shirt.

Her eyes turned, reluctantly, towards the shooter, the man that had tried to kill both of them, who was now gasping air, with each breath slower than the previous one. His eyes were glazed, staring into one kind of abyss of his own, and she saw how his lips curled into a feeble smirk. It seemed macabre, as if he was grinning at her, and it made her shudder. She was still looking at the man, when she saw how his eyes dimmed, the light no longer reflecting from them all of a sudden. The man let out a chortle, something akin to a laughter through blood and saliva, and then a long sigh, and Rose knew he had died.

The hubcap that Daryl had wielded was now sticking hideously from his neck, and blood pooled disgustingly on the ground around the dead man. His neck was inhumanely twisted, with a protruding bone poked through the skin.

"D-Daryl?" Rose whispered, hesitant to say anything in the first place, but desperate to see if he was alright. She took few more steps to get closer, her legs wobbly and knees buckling.

She stopped few steps from Daryl who still laid on the ground his arm thrown over his forehead. The bandage she had tied as firmly as possible seemed to have unravelled as some of it peeked from underneath his shirt. The man grunted and forced himself to sit up. The sweater he wore was now stained with the blood of the attacker and most likely his own as well. Along with the previous night's scars and bruises, he now had a newly bloodied lip and swelling on his cheek. He held his stomach, and his face contorted in pain, as he clambered up, still trying to steady his breathing.

Despite she wanted to run away, Rose stepped closer hurrying to give the man some support to stand. As her arm slid under Daryl's, and around his waist, she glanced at the man on the ground, his eyes staring into the distance blankly.

"I-Is he….?" she began asking.

She knew it was a redundant question, but she couldn't help but start it. She already knew he was.

"Dead," Daryl replied in confirmation.

Her stomach churned once or twice, and she swallowed few times to keep herself from throwing up. Her hair had fallen partially from the ponytail, and she brushed the wavy strand that fell down over her nose off of her face. She haphazardly brushed her fingers through the rest of her hair, trying to gain some semblance but gave up with her task as Daryl stumbled, nearly tripping them both.

" _I thought I lost you!"_

"' _s nothin', just - -"_

" _Nothing?! You're bleeding and you're in a hospital!"_

" _No more undercover work, Sunshine, promise."_

" _I can't lose you."_

" _You're my life. 'm safe with you."_

Another flash of a life she presumably had lived. The same pale blue eyes were looking at her, from a hospital bed, and she was wearing hospital scrubs, holding his hand. The flash in her mind had a loving feel to it.

Sunshine? Nobody had ever called her that, but it felt oddly familiar.

Who was the man she was talking to in her strange flashes of a life long ago? And why had this man's presence triggered more of these hazy and surprisingly truthful memories. She shot a look at Daryl, as a thought occurred to her. The man, Daryl, was it this man she was trying to help? But why would he be someone from her past and not say anything? Why would he talk to her like she was the center of the universe and nothing else mattered? And what's with the scrubs? Had she been a - - doctor? A nurse?

Too many questions and too many outside stimuli, she decided.

Things were getting mixed up and she couldn't separate the truth and reality from the uncertain and dream filled gaps.

To distract herself, she looked up at the man, and squeaked, "What's going on?"

She hated how her voice sounded strangled and how her throat suddenly felt tight, like a pair of invisible hands were choking her. She kept her eyes on him, and after a moment of silence, she was certain he was weighing his answer, trying to set his words carefully. The pregnant pause made her bite her bottom lip awkwardly and expect the worst.

He chuckled, in a vain attempt to make the situation less severe, and wobbled forward, his hold of her shoulder tightening.

"Don't think I can explain it," he gritted between his teeth, "We need a place to lay low for a moment, and I fuckin' need a damn phone."

She tried to usher the man towards the porch, but instead of following her he stopped dead on his tracks and rather forcefully turned them both around, towards the truck. Trying to stop him didn't work, she could not muster up enough strength to physically stop the man, and whatever she tried to tell him fell to deaf ears.

"I should at least check your stitches, please!" she tried, as they reached the truck. He hissed, mostly because of the pain in his abdomen, and rolled his back against the door.

"'s fine, just get in," he growled.

"I'm… I'm not going anywhere until - -," she started, but Daryl slammed his fist against the door and cursed heavily out loud.

She flinched once, but then frowning, she pursed her lips together tightly, and furiously turned to face him. Without thinking of any possible consequences she slapped him across his cheek.

"Just because I helped you, and just because I trust you, for reasons beyond my understanding, doesn't mean I let you boss me around!" Rose barked sharply.

Her palm tingled at the force of the hit.

True, she'd realized she trusted the man, but couldn't understand why. Maybe it was because he had taken a hell of a beating just a moment earlier, and saved her life. Maybe it was because he had kind eyes. Maybe it was because she could tell he was a good man.

She did trust that he wouldn't behave like an asshole towards her, and she was able to rely on that trust.

But, still, her brain was screaming at her to stop trying to get herself killed, but she was too upset and too confused to care. Whatever the reasons were, she wasn't afraid of this man, despite he was a bit rough around the edges.

"Tryna save ya ass, girl!" he barked back, rubbing his cheek and glaring at the petite blonde woman.

Her bottom lip trembled for a second, and she felt how hot tears began pooling behind her eyelids, before she swallowed and willed herself not to start crying.

" _Stop being an idiot! He is your brother!"_

" _He's a fuckin' asshole, that's what he is!"_

" _You don't say something like that about your family!"_

That memory was as clear as day. Rose could say without a doubt that it was a memory. She had slapped the man she had been fighting with. She had instantly apologized in unison with the man.

They had fought over the man's brother. He had deemed his own brother an asshole, but she remembered that the brothers had been close, and they would have died for one another.

Wishing she could see the man's face, and not just the blue eyes, and remember more than just snippets of these times she had forgotten, she crossed her arms to her chest and feeling suddenly vulnerable and annoyed at the same time.

"Then what the hell is all this?!" she retorted, insisting an answer, because damned if she didn't deserve one. She thought she managed to look angry as she stomped her foot once.

"I stopped to help you last night! Because it was the _decent_ thing to do! You clearly needed, and still do, a doctor, any form of medical assistance, really! But then you just refuse to be taken to the hospital, so I bring you to my home, and - - and all _this_ happens!"

Remembering something vaguely familiar in the situation she shook her head, trying to vanish those pesky ghosts of her past and face this man who had just a moment ago killed another man - albeit someone who had tried to kill them both - with a hubcap.

"You expect me to believe that this is a coincidence? And even if I was to give you the benefit of a doubt, and I was going to do what you said and come with you, I would not leave my dogs!"

"Nah," Daryl grumbled, "You're right. This ain't no coincidence."

She was about to reply, but stopped, her mouth closing slowly, and she took a moment to compose herself after he had actually agreed with her, and admitted it.

"Then what is it? I'm confused, and scared and I definitely deserve an answer," she sighed.

"Gonna tell you, but first, you have to trust me, girl. We gotta get out of this cabin before it's too late. I don't think I have enough in me to do that again," he sighed.

He then looked over his shoulder, at the cage and the dogs pacing back and forth, with drool and froth on their lips. She wouldn't be Beth if she would even consider leaving her dogs behind.

He chewed his cheek, sighing, and admitting to himself that he probably couldn't leave the animals behind either. Instead voicing out his thoughts, he groaned and nodded, agreeing to her terms.

"Gotta get out of here. Jim ain't the only one after us now that they know where we are," Daryl said, following his nod, deciding in a fraction of a second that he needed to explain something.

"I don't understand," she said, and shook her head.

"Be- -," he started, before biting his tongue and swallowing the name, "Rose, 'm gonna explain it to ya, promise. But, gotta get us out of here first, gotta keep us alive. C'mon," he then explained.

She nodded, hesitantly, but she agreed with what he had to say.

"T-The dogs… and…" she stammered and waved ambiguously towards the dogs' cage.

"Get 'em. Get what you might need for yourself and the dogs, okay? I gotta - - take care of this," Daryl mumbled, pushing himself from the truck, where he still had been leaning and limped over to the body of Jim's.

When she didn't move, he gestured towards the dog cage with his head, and she turned around, quickly sprinting over and opening the wire door, and letting the four more or less stressed dogs out. They immediately proceeded to trot around the yard, sniffing Beth hastily, then Daryl a little bit longer and then circle around the dead body on the ground.

The big grey one, Daryl didn't know the names nor had he asked for them, stared intently at the animal, and then growled at the body.

"Yeah, that's it. That swizzle-stick tried to kill ya owner," Daryl grumbled at the dog. The animal huffed, turning around and then kicking up the dirt few times.

"Okay," Daryl huffed shrugging his shoulders.

From his peripheral view he saw Beth run inside the house with one of the dogs at her heels. He kneeled down next to Jim's body, and began checking up his pockets, grunting from exertion as he did so.

He had a wallet with a driver's license under a fake name, along with $400 worth of money and a calling card, with only a number printed on it.

He snorted, pocketing the wallet and deciding to check up the number as soon as he got his stuff from his car. He patted down the jacket pockets, and proceeded to relief the man from a small pocket knife, and brand spanking new satellite phone. A quick once over told him it was encrypted, but he made a mental note to check it more thoroughly as soon as they were on the road, but for now he stuffed it in his pocket.

Just then, Beth came out of the house carrying a small bag for her clothes and other necessities, and a larger plastic bag for something that looked like food and water and a pile of something that looked like yarn through the plastic. He arched his eyebrow at her and waited for an explanation.

"They.. need food, and water," she said, gesturing towards the dogs. As she got closer, he noticed that the weird pile of yarn was actually an uneven ball of leashes and harnesses and collars.

Daryl stood up, wavered a little, before he padded slowly over to the sniper rifle that was on the ground abandoned and picked it up. Even though it was Jim's gun, and Daryl knew from experience that he was not the best with weapons, it was a firearm he could use at some point for certain. At least until he got to his own stash.

They turned in unison towards the truck and then he saw it.

The front wheel was empty and there was something dripping from the undercarriage.

"Fuck!" Daryl exclaimed out loud. Beth turned to look at him, biting her bottom lip.

"'suppose ya ain't got another car somewhere here?" he asked, already knowing her answer. She had one truck and it was currently unusable.

"What - - what about _his_ car?" she asked timidly and poked her finger towards the body of Jim, without even looking at his direction. She clearly tried to avoid looking at it.

Daryl turned around, glaring at the body. His lip curled in disdain. It would cause problems if someone came looking for Beth, and it would definitely cause problems if they took it with them. He would have to figure that puzzle out fast.

But one thing was certain, though. As hyped up as he had been for this job, Jim hadn't walked here.

His eyes flashed and he actually caught himself grinning at the way of her thinking.

"Which way is the road?" Daryl asked, smirking, "Good thinkin', girl," he then added.

She pointed towards the slope of a road and Daryl frowned as he assessed their options. He glanced at Beth and the four dogs sniffing the ground around her. His main objective now was to get her to safety, fuck all the others. His stomach flipped at the thought of having to ditch the dogs, if Beth was in danger, but he couldn't let his mission objective to fall in cracks of a plan.

"Okay, we ain't gonna be able to use your truck, so we jus' gotta get over there and find his truck. But we gotta hide his body first."

She sneered, mostly out of disgust and shuddered, when he crouched down and grabbed the man's legs.

"What if someone finds… it?" she asked, chewing her cheek.

"Can call it in later," he amended, partly to himself, and partly to Beth.

She had an expression on her face as if she was about to say something, but then she seemed to bite her words back, and nodded instead of trying to rationalize it or talk Daryl out of it.

"Alrigh'", he said, and grabbed Jim by his legs.

There were really no good places Daryl could hide Jim's remains for a short period of time.

He didn't want to drag the bloody mess inside the cabin, or leave him in the yard like that. There were bound to be animals that would have had a happy hour with the corpse. After a moment, he decided that he would hide the body on the flatbed of Beth's truck. It was a half cocked plan, but his mind was already dealing with the consequences that would fall upon them once they'd call it in. He had to make sure it looked like they had moved him there out of respect.

"The truck," he said, gesturing towards the old, green pickup. She frowned for a second, but then nodded. Her truck was otherwise useless to them right now. They didn't have enough time to start fixing it up, or change the punctured wheel, or find out whatever the hell was leaking underneath other than break look at the ground under the truck told Daryl enough; it was probably all things liquid the vehicle used.

Daryl dragged the body over to the truck and despite her nausea at seeing the hubcap still embedded into Jim's neck, Beth helped. Together they managed to get the body on the flatbed and Daryl threw a dirty tarp over it without giving another thought to the issue. They had to get going.

"C'mon, we gotta run. We've been here too long already," he said, and glanced around him making his words have an ominous echo to them. The forest around them seemed to have quieted down, and even the dogs were standing still near Beth, their ears pointed forward, listening to the creaks and cracks of the trees as wind blew past them.

Daryl didn't like the way there suddenly wasn't any sounds of birds. He reached over to usher Beth on the move. She stood still for few seconds, looking at the truck and the small cabin of hers. Almost reluctantly she turned to look at Daryl. She seemed hesitant, and Daryl remained silent as he kept chewing his cheek, trying to alleviate the anxiety inside him.

She had no reason to trust him, and now she was supposed to go with him, practically a stranger, and leave her home and the body _he_ had killed? What a stellar plan it was.

"We gotta go," he said as calm as possible, "We gotta go, _Rose_. Gotta get you out of here."

"I… I don't understand," she replied shaking her head, "I can't believe what is happening."

"Promise ya, gonna explain it all, just gotta get you to Seattle. That's the nearest US Marshals' office."

"Seattle," she sighed, "Seattle again."

"Gotta go, now."


	7. Nothing is solid and permanent

Previous night's rain had made the dirt road to her cabin a muddy mess. It made their trek from the cabin to the next dirt road so much more difficult. They slipped and slid, fumbling forwards, as their shoes were soaked almost immediately, and the soppy mud drenched their pant legs.

"Ouch," Beth cried out suddenly, drawing Daryl's attention to her immediately. He quickly strode the few steps back to her, worry clear on his face.

Once he grabbed her gently by her elbow, she was already clambering up, regaining her balance with as much poise as she possibly could standing ankle deep in mud on a slope that left much to be desired.

She'd gained her balance back rather quickly, but she was now cradling her left wrist, and winced a little at the pain that throbbed through her arm when she tried to move it.

"Ya okay?" Daryl wheezed.

He watched her intently, as she lifted her face up and nodded, biting her lip, and clearly downplaying her injury.

 _Something Beth had done too_ , he reminded himself, as an memory of her telling she was going to work despite having a fever of 104 floated through his mind.

He wanted to reprimand her for doing that now, but instead he took a gentle hold of her wrist, almost reluctantly letting go of her elbow, and pressing down on both sides with his thumb and index finger. She twitched visibly, and yanked her hand back.

"It ain't broken, but we better get it wrapped soon," he grumbled, wiping his sweaty, dirty and bloodied palms onto his pants.

She chewed her bottom lip looking downright frightened but then nodding promptly, her expression melting into some form of relief. She knew it herself, he could tell, that her wrist wasn't broken, but it scared her nevertheless. He had just stated the obvious and it made him feel slightly embarrassed about it.

"C'mon," he then sighed, gently placing his palm onto her back and guiding her forward, while still berating himself for being a spaz of the worst kind around her now.

"It would have been so much easier with my truck," Beth mumbled and Daryl had to agree.

 _Would have been_ , he thought.

How much time it would have taken them to get up the slope if the truck could have made it in the first place. There were ridges, potholes and rocks on the road. Water pooled on the dibbets and crevices of the mud and dirt creating deceitful puddles that would suck in an elephant. He suspected the truck would have gotten stuck in a matter of minutes. That is, if the truck had even started after Jim had shot the engine block and rendered the truck useless. Still, he agreed with what Beth said.

"Mmh," he replied back noncommittally, and ushered her to trudge forward.

He glanced to his left, spotting one of the dogs trotting next to him and Beth. Others were still too excited about the unplanned freedom and kept zooming to sniff and investigate things from side to side of the road. Daryl saw one of them marking a tree, and one sniffing eagerly at some tuft of grass, before taking a bite out of it. Just like their pants and shoes, the dogs' formerly clean paws and legs were now brown, grey and black, as the mud clung onto the fur and dried in lumps.

Not that Daryl really cared. His objective was to get the woman presumed dead out of this hole of a town.

"Let's pick up the pace," he mumbled, urging Beth to jog with him up the slope. In reality, it was a short enough of a walk to get from the cabin to the small forest road up ahead, but in their state of mind it felt like forever. It shouldn't have been that difficult, to be honest. Daryl kept eyeing at Beth who did her best at running after him, and the dogs, and himself, he kept holding onto his stomach, willing the pain in his gut to disappear.

Once they finally reached the forest road, Daryl stopped, letting Beth to steady her breathing. She was still cradling her left wrist and she looked like she was about to pass out from the exhaustion.

He had to admit himself that he wasn't feeling any better. He hadn't been in such a poor shape since before his goddamned basic training.

Blaming himself for not seeing the attack in time, and getting jumped on the previous night, he touched his stomach. The wounds on his abdomen seemed to scream out in never ending and throbbing pain. Deep down he knew that he needed to get them cleaned, checked and medicated by a doctor of any variety, but at this point he had to downplay his injuries. He couldn't let them affect him now.

The pain was distracting him from thinking clearly. He needed to focus and he needed to do his fucking job. Knowing he had painkillers in his car, along with some basic first aid supplies, he made his first mission finding his car.

"Rest here," he said to Beth, and began looking around them, slowly turning around, trying to spot a truck, a sedan, even a motorcycle, anything that Jim might have used as a vehicle to get there. When he didn't spot any, he swore crudely under his breath and grit his teeth together, eliciting a judgmental look from Beth.

"Gotta find his car," his explanation was an excuse but a good one. She said nothing, still out of breath he figured. Trying to deduce how long it would take them to walk to the town or to the nearest house with people, she started to scan the surroundings with him. Sticking his hand in his pocket, he pulled out the satellite phone he had found and wished he'd found the password as well. Without it the damn thing was just about as useful as twig.

He could try and hack his way in but he doubted he knew Jim enough to be able to pick his password. Chewing his cheek forcefully, he came to a conclusion that he didn't want to force Beth to trudge through the woods, but that seemed to be their best bet at the moment.

Upset with himself even more, he kicked the gravel on the ground in his anger and brushed his fingers through his hair. Then, shaking his head like a dog, he was just about confess to her that they would be royally screwed if they didn't find that vehicle of Jim's and that they were sitting ducks out in the open.

Touching his abdomen, he couldn't help but rationalize that the men who had jumped on him, beat the shit out of him and even knife him were probably locals hired by Jim. He couldn't see them being his esteemed colleagues; they had not let him live.

Still it was his own damn fault, he hadn't bothered to be overly cautious or covert while in town. It would have been easy for any of them, however many there were in town, even Jim, to spot him and arrange that beating, though.

Daryl was certain that since his call to Rick, they had been tracking his phone and he hadn't had enough brains to crack that fucker until on the porch of her cabin. Jim had showed up at the cabin not too long after that, and it meant everyone and their mothers couldn't be too far behind. He wasn't convinced at all that they weren't being observed as they stood there.

But, lucky for them, the first one to arrive had been Jim and not some machine gun kamikaze. But still, he had put Beth right smack in the middle of harm's way knowingly. Shit, she was in danger as long as she was - -

"There!" Beth squealed, interrupting Daryl's thoughts.

She pointed towards a slow bend on the road, further away than he had looked at first. He needed few moments, squinting his eyes, and seeing only some undergrowth and fir saplings at first, but then the light bounced off a silvery grill of a car and he spotted the vehicle hidden behind the shrubbery.

He grunted approvingly and glanced behind at the muddy road and feeling uncharacteristically glad that Jim hadn't killed them both at the cabin. As a Dixon, he'd learned a long fucking time ago to have no disillusions how it would have played out after the officers had found their decaying corpses. He would have been blamed for it, and she would have been the victim. But, at least, they would have been half right about it. She was the victim in this shit. They should have just taken their beef at Daryl, instead of Beth.

So, he nodded at her, he ushered her quickly towards the car.

He kept eyeing at the surroundings, not wanting to admit to himself the feeling that they were being watched. It wasn't a pleasant one.

Despite seeing the dogs jogging happily after them, tongues lolling out and tails wagging eagerly to the same rhythm as their trot, and not being alert it felt as if the forest around them was otherwise silent. His instincts were distracted by the pain, and the continuous ache was numbing even his sniper skills honed to perfection over the years.

"Did you take the keys?" she asked, looking at the big vehicle suspiciously.

He glanced at her, arching his eyebrow at the dubious expression she had, as if she partially expected him to pull a piece of wire out of his back pocket, open the doors with it and then hotwire the vehicle for them to use.

Jim had covered the bonnet with few branches and leaves, and Daryl began brushing them off with a broad sweep of his arm. Beth followed his example.

"Nah, he didn't have them on him," Daryl replied, as he brushed his hands onto his pants. There was resin stuck on his skin, he felt the viscous substance stick to the fabric of his pants and he noticed that all of the branches Jim had used had been cut from saplings around the car. He huffed, and did his best to ignore the sticky feeling.

Keeping his balance by holding onto the exterior of the car, he teetered through the twigs and rocks and branches, moving at the back of the truck. A large, dirty tarp was thrown over the flatbed. He began yanking it down, but eventually it took their combined efforts to pull it off and roll it into a ball of sorts, before Daryl hauled it on the back and pile a spare tire and a tool box on top of it.

It would have been risky to leave it behind.

"How… How are you going to - you know?" Beth asked, gesturing at the car with arms spread and looking puzzled. She stood there, expecting him to say something, but instead he shrugged his shoulders at first. He knew he could always jimmy his way in, and hotwire the car - just as she had expected him to do at first - but it would have been impractical after a while. That car was their only transport at the moment, and they wouldn't get away with hot wiring the car every time they had to stop.

He bit his bottom lip vigorously, and then made his way back to the front of the truck.

Jim had been such a newbie when he'd met the man, and unfortunately he had inadvertently taught some of the tricks to him.

Kneeling next to the front bumper he tapped the metal few times, before he moved to poke the licence plate a little. He grinned for a brief second before he seemingly bent the plate but Beth saw there were small hinges and a coil contraption that most definitely was not a legal part of it.

"What is that?" she breathed out and watched as Daryl reached to a small compartment that was hidden behind the plate.

"Somethin' I was stupid enough to teach the Swizzle Stick but it came through for us," he said, grunting as he strained his stomach to lean closer, trying to peer inside of the small, hidden compartment. When he pulled his hand out he was holding a set of keys, with a triumphant look on his face.

"There," he said.

As he jangled the set of keys between his thumb and forefinger Beth sighed out with relief, and her shoulders relaxed seemingly.

The car wasn't brand-spanking-new but new enough to have a remote to unlock the car alarm. Daryl pressed the button once witnessing the blinkers flash twice and the central locking mechanism opening the door locks with a low, barely audible whirring sound.

Daryl opened the door to the driver's side quickly and gave a quick look to the interior and found it surprisingly clean, despite some burger wrappers, mugs and receipts in a rather large plastic bag.

He nodded at Beth, who reached to open the passenger side door hesitantly.

"What about the dogs?" she asked, as she opened the passenger door slowly.

"There's enough room in the back," Daryl grumbled and concentrated climbing in the front seat and popping open the glove compartment.

"What?! I am not going to put the dogs on the flatbed!" Beth's voice rose an octave and she crossed her arms to her chest. Her face was pale, which Daryl figured to be mostly about the shock of the situation, but now as she glared at him angrily a pink hue began spreading across her cheeks.

"What - -?" Daryl piped in confused, until he realized she had misunderstood his words, "No, the back, as in the back seat. 's small but I guess they fit there," he said, poking his thumb over his shoulder.

The pink hue darkened and flushed onto her cheeks as she turned her head to the left, spotting the narrow backseat of the truck.

"Oh," she mumbled and began calling for the unruly animals and ushering them inside.

"C'mon, let's hurry up," Daryl said, keeping his voice stable, not wanting to embarrass her any more.

"I really thought…" she began, but he huffed, shrugging his shoulders and repeated his words for her to hurry up.

~::~

The banged up grey truck was parked in the parking lot behind the gas station near Governor Blake's mansion. He couldn't make this call back at the Governor's mansion. He was positive most of the rooms were bugged and rigged with security cameras just to spy on the hired help.

He wasn't supposed to have much of a relationship with his younger brother. Having Daryl angry at him seemed to entertain Governor Blake to no end.

Merle Dixon leaned against the car, fingers drumming nervously the metal of the bulk of the vehicle as he listened to the beeps from his phone.

It was probably his 20th call to Daryl. The line continued to beep and then a dreary voice reciting a monotonic litany of instructions about leaving a message to a voicemail, just like all the previous times he'd tried to reach his little brother.

He groaned displeased, violently ending the call, before throwing the damned thing on the front seat of the truck through an open window of the door.

"FUCK!" he swore crudely once again, just like he had done after every single call. The level of his frustration had grown call after call, and right now he seemed to be frustrated out of his mind.

"Fuckin' hell," he growled, brushing his palm over his forehead, before wiping the sweat accumulated there onto his sleeve.

Despite the governor believing he and Daryl were not in terms with each other, he was still talking with his younger brother every now and then. They had to keep it short, and they couldn't go into specific details over non secure phones, but they had developed their own code system for that. Still, their relationship was just as strained as it had been when he'd come to the funeral of their mother on a short leave from the Army.

But, up until now, Daryl had always answered to him, or at least replied a while later. Now it had been almost twelve hours and no word of him. The situation seemed to be one of those that draw out the not so pleasant memories of his childhood, and how he had handled things prior all this.

Of course, the elder Dixon brother knew he was a lousy big brother. Hell, he was lousy in most aspects of his own life!

He had left. Otherwise he _would_ have killed their father. There wasn't even a question about that. The fact that he had left Daryl at the hand of Will Dixon, their drunk of father, was what killed _him_.

He had done his very best to get Daryl in trouble more often than not during the boy's teen years, and he had continued to do so all the way through his Marine service, him becoming a cop, and later a detective. He had truly used that "get out of jail" card with Daryl so many times, that he wouldn't have been surprised if Daryl owed time to the prison system.

Sometimes, Merle thought that was probably why they had sent him to Florence instead of any other federal prison or Georgia State Prison.

In all honesty, being a lousy big brother shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone; he knew that at least those who had known him and Daryl and Will Dixon before, weren't surprised at all.

He did blame himself, though. He had allowed this to go down. Philip Blake had hired Merle to do little odd jobs here and there even before he was a governor. After the man had been elected as governor he had made a separation between his public image and the seedy business interactions he had dealt with before. Merle had risen in ranks after a while, and finally become the head of Blake's all illegal activities. He had been lying for so long now that sometimes, when he was tired, Merle Dixon believed in those lies himself.

He had become what he had been expected of him.

The thing that made it worse, that made him even more of a lousy brother, was that Merle Dixon knew what Daryl had been sent to chase down.

He felt his stomach lurch, and he shrugged himself like a dog. His usually non existing conscience played the mostly elusive guilt card rarely. He knew it wasn't for what he had done, or what he knew. It wasn't for sparing Daryl's feelings either. He could have blown up half a Georgia and he wouldn't feel guilty over that. What he felt guilty over was the blonde haired woman that had gotten in the middle of the ridiculous play for power scenario in Atlanta.

That was something he couldn't forgive or forget himself.

It was also the one thing that he'd had to keep from Daryl for the past five years.

He grumbled under his breath, yanked the door open and sat behind the wheel. Feelings, something he just wasn't prepared to handle, such as anxiety and helplessness, grew unlimited and unstopped inside of him. His first reaction was to stifle them with a hefty dose of meth.

A thought of the ice blue rocks that he still kept hidden in various places, just in case, made him want to beat himself unconscious. He had been dry and sober for quite some time now, and wanting to fill his veins with the ice blue liquid gold made the current predicament of his almost unbearable.

He knew better, and despite of being sober now he let the illusion of Merle the Drug Dealer still live on. He had actually become scaringly good at acting drunk or high person.

 _Ain't weak! Get up you fucker and do what you have to do!_

If he could make himself angry to an umpteenth power, he might be able to navigate through the sudden need to get high and fast.

Calling himself a pussy helped, and he was happy for that. But, no matter how he played his cards he'd been dealt now, he had little to no means to aid his little brother.

"Tha' lil' fucker oughta know better," he growled to himself, before reaching for the ignition.

Daryl should have contacted him by now no matter which way the job had gone.

He chewed his bottom lip violently, tasting the iron of the blood in his mouth, as he sped out of the parking lot.

Distracting himself successfully from the idea of getting all high with meth, he couldn't help but think how much Daryl had already found out by now. Clutching the wheel, he had to hope that the boy would still be talking to him, even if he had found out that Merle'd had part in him getting this job to do, and how much he knew about the original incident that had ruined lives.

Merle shook his head knowing all too well that his baby brother would never forgive him, if he'd find out that Merle had known about Beth, and her father, all along.

He had been a selfish bastard before. Not that he wasn't one now, still, but he had enough perspective to the world now. And he had realized only so much later, after Daryl had lost Beth, how much he had loved that Lil' Nightingale of his.

The urge to drown his thoughts into drugs seemed to raise its ugly head again, and he groaned out of displeasure. He kept driving through the city to his craptastic apartment, as he reached for his phone once more. At first he contemplated on calling to Daryl but opted against it.

Instead, he dialed one of the numbers he had kept only because the person on the other end of the line owed him a big favor and this was just about as big as it would get.

After two beeps, Merle heard a gruff, hoarse voice reply.

"Who's this?"

"Merle Dixon," he replied, keeping the bass in his voice, and sounding as condescending as humanly possible.

"Well, slap me thrice and hand me to my mama," man's voice replied, "Merle Fucking Dixon."

There was chuckling on the other end of the line, and Merle wanted to kick himself in the balls.

"Yeah, 's me. Jesusfuck, ain't got no reason to be so cheery," he groaned.

The chuckling broke into a gut wrenching laughter and Merle began cursing the day his daddy had ever been born. If he had ever made a mistake in his life, he was starting to suspect this might take the top easily.

It wasn't easy to get Jim's truck moving from the spot he had parked it. Daryl had to push it from the thickets onto the gravel road that was only barely starting to dry after the heavy rain. He had seated her behind the wheel, and now, she kept squeezing the leather of it until her knuckles turned white and the skin of her palms was burning.

Despite considering herself to be a fairly good driver this truck wasn't her own. It was also far more bigger than her old rust bucket. Thinking of her pea soup colored truck made her yet again remember the dead body they had put on the flatbed and it made her shiver.

She seemed to be on an autopilot. Everything that had happened over the last 24 hours was too much to fathom and it didn't help her at all that she was right where she was with the man who had actually killed someone who had attacked them with a sniper rifle.

Every single movie, book and news story that she had ever seen in her life kept going circles in her head, and that little voice deep down seemed to want her to get the hell away from the man. Either she had developed an emotional bond and a Stockholm syndrome in record time, but she couldn't for the life of her understand why she felt like she could absolutely and unequivocally trust that Daryl Dixon was a good man.

"Hit it!" he shouted, and she stepped on the gas, feeling the truck lurch forward as he gave it a heavy push.

The door of the truck hung open, and she looked over her shoulder at Daryl, but not having a line of sight with him.

"You shouldn't be doing this!" she piped.

"Ya wanna push it for me?" he grumbled back, "C'mon, try again."

She pressed her lips tightly shut, and turned to look at the road, steering the truck as he pushed it once more.

It was a good thing that Hershel Howe had all but drilled any and all contingencies into her mind about roads and weather and living in a remote location such as Bethel. She gave a little bit more gas to the truck. Looking at the rearview mirror, she could see Daryl pushing the truck with both arms straining and head dipped down. A moment later, she felt how the truck rolled forward, onto a much steadier surface, and with a cheery yelp she pushed forward and managed to get the truck onto the road.

Indeed, her father had made her to learn to drive whether it was snow, sleet, rain or frogs pouring down from the skies. Secretly she was happy for it now, because before she wouldn't have been much help. Or that's what she thought at least.

Her memories barely reached to the moment she woke up in the hospital, her father by her side.

The first year after the accident had been the hardest.

She had spent the first month in the hospital she couldn't remember name of. After that, she had been moved to a rehabilitation facility in Phoenix, Arizona.

Her first memories that weren't muddled by her feeble concept of time were from Phoenix. After a while though her father had moved her to another, much smaller rehabilitation center near Seattle. Between those places she had been forced to learn to walk again, learn how to talk and eat herself. She'd had to learn how to form thoughts and memories and how to function like a moderately normal human being, all the while trying not to be bothered by the fractions of memories she had forgotten and memories that were planted back into her mind by her father, even though some of them felt forced.

When she had eventually returned back to Bethel, and her father had put her through this vigorous survival boot camp of living off grid of sorts, she had indeed wondered more often than once about the logic behind her father's thinking. It made everything question all the fragments that trickled through from her life before, all the inconsistencies that occurred more often than not, and the odd way her father behaved around new people.

But, still, at that very moment, despite her father's behavior had raised more questions than given back any answers, she was glad he had drilled her with all survivalist things. She might have keeled over otherwise.

Daryl's arrival at the truck interrupted her thoughts. The man had a wild gaze in his eyes, and she eagerly slid over to the passenger seat, giving way for him to take over. He grumbled something at first, looking at the road, but then climbed in and slammed the door shut behind him.

"Which way?" he asked gruffly, fingers wrapping around the wheel, and his eyes darting over the dashboard, getting himself acclimatized with the vehicle. She nodded nervously, biting her lip roughly, and waved her hand to the direction they were now facing inside the truck.

"Ya did good," he said suddenly and made her gasp softly.

She wasn't sure what he meant; driving that big truck that wasn't hers or the way she had handled the awful situation back at the cabin. But him acknowledging which ever it was, made her thankful that this man had been there for her.

He shifted the gears, easing his foot off the break, he made the small pebbles ricochet off the wheels and ground as he hit the gas with a heavy foot. She felt her stomach tightening, and she let out a surprised squeak as she turned her head. Her eyes landed on the side mirror.

 _Remember to be extra careful when encountering horses with riders, Junebug._

The voice that spoke the words in her faded memory belonged to her father, and it rattled her a little. She bit her lip, trying to act natural, act normal. Leaning to her right a little, tilting her head enough to be able to see her own reflection from the side mirror better, she flinched once as she saw how dilated her eyes were and how scared she actually looked.

 _You don't want anything to spook the horse you're riding yourself, so, you don't want to do it to anyone else either, Bethy._

The images and the voice were blurry, distorted at best, and she was not even certain she could trust her memories, but the voice of her father and the unfocused image of him didn't beckon distrust.

It was nearly unbearable, having her memories flooding back like that. She had tried and tried years by now, but none had helped. And now, that things had been admittedly horrible and dreadful she was starting to remember things she never even knew she had.

Four dogs panted in the back seat of the truck, one of the snouts poking through the two front seats. Drool dribbled on the parking brake slowly. Her skin started to feel clammy, and her cheeks felt hot. Suddenly one of the dogs poked her neck with their snout, and she jumped nervously. The hot breath of the animal hit her with full force and made her world spin out of control.

Blinking furiously at the sensation piling up inside of her, she returned to gaze her own reflection in the side mirror. This time, she hardly recognized her own face. It was familiar, something of a near distance. The blonde hair, with sideswept bangs and a messy braid in her hair did feel familiar, but it wasn't her. It wasn't Rose Howe, who she had learned to be.

It was someone else. Someone called _Junebug_ , _Bethy_ , _Beth_. It was a girl looking just like her, sitting in a car with her father, that looked deceivingly like Hershel Howe.

It seemed that _this_ , the one she saw in the mirror now, reflection of hers wasn't exactly what it had been prior to the accident.

Now, that she'd had a moment to calm down after the incident at the cabin, and sort her thoughts, she was reeling. Every bit of coherency seemed to have gone through a black hole and come out at the other end as a swirling, jumbled mess.

Who was Junebug? Who was this young girl named Bethy?

Her father, he'd never called her that, had he? He had been almost cold and aloof when she had come back to this small town after being released from the rehabilitation facility.

He would have never called her with such a sweet nickname. But, why then, that blonde girl in the memory that clearly wasn't hers was so familiar?!

She turned to look at the man who was driving, and let out a tiny whimper before she pressed her lips into a tight line. Why did she trust this man so unconditionally?

She bit her cheek, and decided it was time to distract herself from the matter, and demand an answer from the practical stranger that she had banded together out of convenience.

"What was that?"

Asking that question made her voice tremble, even though she did her best to sound determined. He returned to her question with an incredulous look and staying silent.

"Whatcha mean?" he asked back, instead of answering. She frowned biting her cheek thinking how he could act like he had no clue what she could possibly mean.

"That!" she breathed and poked her thumb over her shoulder towards the direction they were coming from. Her eyes drilled into his and as he averted his gaze she kept staring at his profile. A flare of anger exploded inside of her, and she was going to continue this until he told her the truth, like he had promised.

Daryl turned to look at her, side eyeing at the road, which suddenly felt less dangerous than it should have been. He remained silent, though.

" _Who_ was that man at the cabin? What was it about? Why me, you, why us?" she blurted out a lieu of questions, eliciting a sigh from Daryl.

"Gotta get ya safe- -," he began but she interrupted him quickly.

"That's not - - That is not what you promised!" she said sternly, suddenly feeling her stomach drop. Her face felt numb and cold, and her palms grew clammy and sweaty fast. She swallowed audibly, and realized her mouth wasn't dry anymore.

"Jesus, alrigh' girl," he huffed, cheeks flushed with a tint of red, "Just… Just let me get us outta this town first! I need my car, some stuff from it, and I need a phone, and I need to talk to a friend of mine before I - - Before I say anythin'."

"I want…" she started her retort, but the feeling of a lump in her throat made her stop quickly.

"Hey," Daryl said, looking at her in between his driving and trying to keep his eyes on the road, "Ya okay? Yer all pale."

"Stop the car," Rose gasped.

"What? Ain't stoppin' now, girl! I gotta get ya outta here!"

"Stop the car now, I feel queasy!" she squeaked and that made Daryl swerve fast on the side of the road. Just as soon as he had stopped, and she unbuckled her seatbelt, lurching against the door, shoving it open with force, she retched onto the ground, just barely out of the floor of the car.

Daryl groaned internally, clutching the wheel, and frustrated throwing his head back against the seat.

She was clearly in shock, and this was a delayed reaction to the events. He needed to make sure she was alright, and at the same time, he was disappointed with himself because they were far from being safe.

Just because they hadn't been t-boned or shot by anyone else by now, didn't mean jack shit. There could have been a bunch of gun crazy bounty hunters with itchy trigger fingers as well as mercenaries on a murderous rampage all around them, and they wouldn't have known it until it was too damn late.

She puked again followed by a painful sounding cough. Her whole body seemed to wrench and curl around itself and shake violently as she puked yet again. He listened to her gag and cough, it was almost as if her brain was telling her to keep on throwing up, but it had become more of a dry heave, as she had nothing to throw up anymore.

He'd been there before. After running 20 miles with 60 pounds of equipment, and standing in front of the barracks, fully exposed to the elements for 24 hours, there wasn't a man or a woman who hadn't thrown up while in training.

Still, it was hard for him to watch her in this predicament. He would have done anything, given up anything, if he could have helped her, stopped her from feeling sick.

She stilled after a moment, and Daryl reached into the glove compartment, hoping to find something resembling a napkin, a piece of paper to give it to her to wipe her mouth with. He felt relieved when he found few tissues neatly folded into the small space. He picked one up, tapping her arm gently and offering the white paper to her between his two fingers, when she glanced at him over her shoulder looking absolutely miserable.

Their eyes met. For a fleeting, half a second moment, her pupils dilated as if she had recognized him, but then she just mumbled a hoarse 'thank you' and turned away from him.

She wiped her mouth discreetly, and straightened back up again. Her hands trembled as she reached for the seatbelt.

"'m sorry about this," he said, holding onto the steering wheel and looking at the road intently. It's not like he didn't want to explain this situation to her, he honestly did want to tell her, but if she didn't recognize him, or remember anything from her past life on her volition, it would protect her in the future.

"Look, B- -," he started, stopped for a second and cleared his throat, "Look, Rose, I promised I'd tell ya what the fuck is goin' on, but first, gotta get ya out of here. I need to talk to a friend of mine. He's… he's a cop," Daryl continued to explain.

He didn't know if name dropping Rick being a cop helped her to trust Daryl a little bit more, or if Rick was even able to help him and Beth, but at least he could get in touch with the Marshals. They needed to get her to safety while someone was sorting out what was really going on. If they needed her far away and protected, that's what he would do.

He turned to look at her, trying to look reassuring, and flinched a little from the jolt that shot through his abdomen, as he shifted in his seat. She kept chewing her bottom lip for a moment, before she turned her head enough to look at Daryl. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the painful grin he had written all over his face, and he knew immediately that she had noticed it.

"What… What's the matter - -? Oh… Oh God," she gasped, leaning closer, too close for comfort, and touched his forehead, and cheek without asking permission. He wouldn't have denied her that, but it was strange. Her palm was surprisingly cool, soothing even, and for a fraction of a second he leaned against that palm.

"You're burning up!"

Exclaiming out loud the obvious, she scooted closer, and let her left hand now slide onto his shoulder, touching his neck. Her right hand tugged his shirt up, revealing the blood seeping through the bandages.

"'s just the wound. Fever's good. Fights the infection," Daryl scoffed, "I got enough painkillers in my car to take down an elephant. There are grade A antibiotics too. Just tell me which way to go."

She hardly listened to anything he was saying, as she was too busy tugging his sweatshirt up, and patting gently the wound she had bandaged earlier.

"It's infected. Just like I was afraid," she stated, her eyes narrow and accusing.

"'s fine!" Daryl barked and shook her hands off of him. He ignored her argument about heading to the hospital, speeding off the shoulder of the road they had been parked more determined to find his car than ever before.

~::~

The vehicle was new. Black and shiny on the outside, sleek and clean on the inside. He had commandeered for personal use some time ago, but it was the first time they were using it.

It was still too crisp and new for comfort, but it had been the biggest vehicle with enough places to store their gear, along with weapons, that they'd had access to. He'd ordered the shaggy haired idiot to keep the RV moving, and the yahoo had sat behind the wheel for the past twelve hours. Sitting by the table he continued to clean his Remington shotgun as a mean to calm his mind down, and ignore the continuous yapping of the men of his team.

If it wasn't the debt he owed to Merle Dixon, he wouldn't have mobilized his crew and ended up on this stupid chase. He was well aware that the end of the said chase would cause a rift, either between him and his men, or him and Dixon, but he wasn't sure which side would be left to lick their wounds and which side would be decimated.

Scoffing at his own thoughts he frowned at the thought of the name of Dixon.

He had sat on this debt long enough. It had been nearly thirty years since he had seen the angry redneck. And well over thirty years ago that man had actually managed to save his ass, which had resulted him owing this favor to Dixon in the first place.

Apparently this situation was important to Dixon.

He'd been practically frantic over the phone and it had sparked interest.

"' _s gonna be dangerous."_

" _We live only once."_

" _Fuck your philosophies. Get it done."_

" _I'd rather fuck you."_

" _Pervert."_

Of course, he'd always had the option to say no, but there was still some honor left in him, ingrained into him by years of service in the Army.

And, if he was admitting truth to himself, he had always had a thing for Merle Dixon and Daryl Dixon.

"So, we gon' kill 'em or what?"

The hoarse voice interrupted his daydreaming. He glanced up from his weapon, and saw Harley, one of his crew, sitting opposite of him, followed by Tony.

The two men, not the sharpest tools in the shed, had been with from the beginning. He trusted them as much as he could, but mostly he was just lucky that the two idiots were indeed, idiots.

"Weren't you listening?" he asked tediously. The two numbnuts looked at each other and grumbled something under their breath. He saw from their eyes, that this was far from their ability of comprehension.

"What was that?" his gaze narrowed and he placed the bolt of the shotgun he'd been cleaning back on the towel that laid on the table in front of him and looked up at the two.

"Wha's the point if we don't get to kill 'em?" Harley asked, his face reflecting the emptiness of his brain.

"We're going to get more money out of them being alive," he replied slowly, emphasizing each word with care.

Harley and Tony looked at each other, Bingo and Bongo in the corner, he couldn't be bothered to remember their names, grumbled displeased. The shaggy haired idiot at the wheel didn't say anything but he saw the man glaring at them over his shoulder.

"Now, c'mon, man," Bingo, or Bongo, started, "We ain't no cops. We gots guns. We kills people fo' livin'."

The way the ignorant inbred talked grated on his nerves, and he wanted to put a bullet right between the crossed eyes of his, but he knew it would make the rest of the men whine and complain.

Unfortunately, the inbred hick was mostly correct. They'd been hired by some pretty nasty people over the years for a number of tasks. Most recently, they'd been on some protection detail which had obviously shook the already frayed nerves of some of the morons, because they hadn't been allowed to scratch their trigger finger itch. Secure deliveries usually included illegal artefacts, diamonds, drugs and weapons. More often than not, they had ended up shooting their way out of an ambush. Being hired for a small, but mobile and completely morally void army was something of a dream job for these idiots.

"I'm sure, we will meet some resistance, and you can satisfy your urges to kill people."

Bongo, or Bingo, twitched a little, and grinned, "We gets to kill 'em if they don' play nicely?"

It was a good thing that he had the ability to keep these blood-thirsty, aggressive morons in line, and they had absolutely no ability to stop and think about how easily they could have just overpowered him if they'd manage to band together.

"There are few people that we need alive, but all the rest… Yours to shoot and kill."

"Yeah!"

"Joe! Joe! Joe!"

"Get ready boys! We gots people to hunt down!" Tony shouted, and laughed rather maniacally.

~::~

"OPEN THE DOOR!" loud banging on the door and even louder shouting from behind it woke up Merle Dixon from a restless sleep on his couch. He'd fallen off the wagon last night and spent quite some time in the whiskey and tequila bottles he'd dragged home. His stubble itched his chin, as he scrambled up, and teetered towards the front door.

His belt hung open, the buckle slapping against his thigh, as the jeans of his hung low on his hips. The white undershirt he'd been wearing the previous day, hung around his neck in a bunch, revealing he hadn't exactly been successful in taking it off last night. His bare feet slapped against the cool floor, as he made his way forward.

"Open the door, Dixon!" another bang and another shout grated his alcohol induced hangover and he groaned out loud, stumbling to the door, tripping onto his boots, and resting his elbow against the doorframe.

He tried to clear his throat, but his tongue felt like old parchment.

Groaning once again in objection, he reached to open the door.

"A'ight, a'ight! What?!"

"Hangover, huh?" a southern drawl asked from the pure, bright light that attacked his eyes brutally. He couldn't see the face of the person, just the harsh outline as they stood on the porch of his cabin, tactically hiding in the sunlight.

"Yeah, whatcha want?" he asked, voice hoarse, speech slightly slurred as his tongue refused to cooperate.

"I had an interesting talk with your brother," the person said, stepping closer.

"Well, if it ain't Rick Fucking Grimes," Merle groaned, "What does the Officer Friendly want? Stab Daryl in the back again?"

"I want to help him and bring Beth Greene home."


	8. Uncertainty and certainty, and destiny

Merle's glare exuded disdain and skepticism. He had never in his life trusted cops, and despite he had kept calling Rick Grimes Officer Friendly for as long as he had known him, the man represented the police and the law. There was nothing "friendly" about that, at least not for Merle. Rick Grimes was part of the very same people, who had turned their backs at Daryl when he had needed help.

That was something Rick was painfully aware of as well.

Merle, among others, believed that Rick had turned his back at Daryl. It was the most perfect, the most elaborate mind game he had ever played, because everyone really believed it; though, it wasn't by his choice.

He'd wanted to stand by his partner. He had wanted to stand by him publicly and tried to argue that the negligent and involuntary homicide charges against Daryl Dixon were not only idiotic and cruel, they were also farfetched, grasping of straws. It had been hardly the correct way to deal with the incident at the Grady Hospital, anyway!

Rick had stood by Daryl's side until he had requested pointedly to walk away and make sure he would be around for his kids.

The way Daryl had said the words had startled Rick at first. He'd almost began to believe that Daryl was in fact finally living up to his family's legacy. But now, as he had spent little over two days digging through piles of folders, all the boxes of evidence and countless reports, trying to find the bottom of the case, he was slowly beginning to start to understand the meaning of Daryl's words of warning.

As an opposite to Merle hating Rick, he was also aware that Merle Dixon felt guilty for not being able to help Daryl get a better lawyer than some yellow bellied, runny nosed runt that had graduated from what ever online college with however low grades and even lower results to allow him to pass the bar exam.

"You don't seem surprised," Rick said as Merle had remained silent for disturbingly long time, just glaring at him, sizing him up for good measure.

"Yeah, I knew the pretty, little Songbird was alive," he barked, crossing his arms to his chest and continuing his glaring.

"You knew?" Rick asked, his right eyebrow arching ever so slightly.

It was new information to Rick and judging by the way Daryl had sounded over the phone, it would be definitely new information for the younger Dixon brother as well.

Merle pursed his lips and remained silent, still glaring at the Sheriff standing on his doorstep, looking menacing like a tank.

"How long have you known?"

"Long enough," Merle growled.

"And you haven't told Daryl?" Rick barked back at the minimal reply.

"Get off ya high horse, Officer Friendly! Ya ain't done nothin' when they arrested Daryl! Ya ain't so innocent either!" Merle hissed back at Rick. He averted his gaze for a brief second, a gesture that indicated shame and guilt, but it didn't answer the question.

"She was protected until someone leaked the information of her whereabouts. The man who wants her dead, who wants Daryl dead too, has deep pockets and there ain't a man on earth who isn't going to say no to a stack of cash. Everyone has a pain threshold," Merle spoke then with a surprisingly calm voice.

"But she was in WITSEC…" Rick began.

"He knows people. People who have assets in every branch of law enforcement. The system ain't so peachy perfect. Believe you me, if someone has enough money and enough contacts they can arrange a death even for witnesses in WITSEC and make it look just like another freak accident. Ain't nobody safe. Tha's just somethin' people keep repeatin' to make 'em feel like they are."

"The FBI and US Marshals would know if there were leaks," Rick insisted.

"Ya trust in the system and in cops is endearin'," Merle chuckled.

"I gotta believe that…" Rick began again, but Merle cut him off crudely, waving his hand.

"Told ya," he grumbled, "Even ya, with ya white shirt and bright halo would accept a wad of cash if there was enough incentive. Ain't got no time for this shit. My job's to protect my baby brother and tha's what I's gonna do. With or without ya help."

"Okay, okay," Rick sighed. He pinched the bridge of his nose and frowned a little, trying to comprehend the new information.

He gave Merle a once over, sighing deep.

Everyone who had ever met the Dixon boys knew all too well that Merle Dixon's main goal in life was to protect his little brother. Despite Merle's path in life had been shadier than Daryl's and all the criminal activities the older Dixon boy had done in the past, every time he spent time in prison, everything boiled down to protecting Daryl in some way only he saw fitting, like he couldn't have done when the two had been children.

Rick knew it.

"But you gotta realize he's gonna…"

"He gonna fuckin' hate my filthy guts and I deserve it, but before that happens, 'm gonna keep my brother alive."

Merle's reply surprised Rick, and without thinking he nodded his head at the older man.

Daryl's grip on the wheel tightened, his knuckles turned white, when he saw the small town rising in front of them amidst the woods as if it was a town from fairy tales and horror stories.

Right now, the small town of Bethel was a little bit of both to him. At first the small town had been as quiet and sleepy as the ghost towns of the gold rush. Now, Daryl felt like he was driving into battle completely unprepared and expecting the main street turn into a gun range, designed to hunt and kill the two down.

Small part of Daryl suspected that he was lying in a ditch in a coma dreaming the events of the past 24 and so hours.

The suspicion on the possibility of him just lying in a ditch dissipated when a cold snout of a curious and slightly bored husky poked into his neck. If anyone asked, he would deny ardently that he hadn't nearly jumped out of his skin at that. Beth shooed the canine back into the small backseat. He wasn't sure if he could have imagined four dogs tagging along with them in the same car if he was indeed in a coma. Checking the backseat through the rearview mirror, he was stared back by four panting dogs.

And then, thinking of dogs, he glanced once more in the back seat, and at the dogs, he hoped they were indeed alert and protective over their owner.

Daryl's eyes kept darting every which direction. His attention was divided into too small slices for his comfort, but fortunately he'd grown used to that.

The burning in his stomach was getting intolerable by the minute, and it was the only reason he was glad they'd reached the town already. He would still have to refuse to go to a doctor. He couldn't risk Beth's life by going into a doctor's office, which would be easy to find by anyone. Nearest hospital was further away, but he couldn't really allow the time that would be a wasting if they were to go there.

He would have to find his car, and deal with what he had there, heavy duty painkillers and anti-inflammatory medicine, some grade A antibiotics and possibly some penicillin too. All thanks to Merle and his occasional clap.

If they would get out of the town alive, he could amend to Beth's plead to take him to a doctor. Maybe a vet.

Scoffing to himself, he thought resorting to a predictable and rather lame option of finding a vet nearby was probably his best option. At least, that way, he could clean up the wound by himself and even stitch it up, if no one was around.

He'd committed B&E occasionally, and he saw no reason he wasn't going to have to do that now as well. He wasn't exactly fond of questions nor he was a big fan of law enforcement being alerted at the scene either. His injuries would scream battery and assault.

There wasn't a nurse or a doctor in this country who wouldn't call for the police.

Except one who wasn't exactly easy to reach.

Nevertheless, his car would have to be the first stop, before he could go and find a Target, or anything similar.

"Is there a hardware store, pharmacy, department store, anything like that in the town?" he asked, gritting his teeth together.

"Yes," she replied, worry lacing her eyes, and voice.

"Which way to the Crazy Cherry?" he asked, ignoring his best her worrying.

"Are you sure your car is there?" she retorted with a question.

"No."

He wasn't, that was the truth.

He couldn't remember much anything from the night before except that he was beaten, and that he'd been in the Crazy Cherry chasing down a ghost. If he had known that the information he'd gotten wasn't exactly up to date, and that Hershel Greene had died a while ago he wouldn't have been at that place.

He had been distracted and frazzled after he'd found Beth alive in the diner and he hadn't exactly been thinking straight. Getting in the casino that wasn't clean as a whistle, would have required some level headedness and calm demeanor. He hadn't been either. He was still to connect the dots as to what had happened, but it didn't take a genius to figure that out.

"The casino is near the harbor. It used to be one of the lumber mill storage areas," Beth sighed. This time she sounded sad, almost teary, which made Daryl glance at her quickly.

"What's wrong?"

"Dad used to tell me how this town was a good place to live. People had jobs. Now, it's all about how much money the owners can squeeze out of air until they deem it too expensive and close factories and mills like they weren't a million-dollar investment," she replied, her voice trembled a little, but there was such a conviction, even in the hushed tones of her speech.

He knew exactly what she meant.

He'd been barely three years old when his father had been laid off from a local factory where he had been assembling cars. It had been a tough break on the proud man. Daryl's mother's, a teacher, health had taken a turn to worse around the time he was five. She had been weak and tired, sick all the time. It had strained the relationship between her and Will.

Money had been scarce after he had lost his job, but even more so when she'd had to quit her job as a teacher. Will Dixon had eventually slipped into the world of gambling, drugs and alcohol, spending all the money that she had brought in.

Merle had told Daryl stories about their parents from when he was younger. After all Merle was good deal older than Daryl. They had been relatively happy early on. Will Dixon hadn't always been a drunken addict, and their mother had been one hell of a knockout, according to Merle's stories.

Their parents hadn't been born under the greatest and luckiest stars, though.

When Daryl's mother's weakness, tiredness and symptoms she couldn't explain in any other way, had worsened, she had been forced to see a doctor. Diagnosis in a free clinic hadn't been exactly painless, and when she had finally been diagnosed with MS, she was crushed; her spirit was crushed.

Will Dixon had dealt with the situation with drinking more, which had then led to physical violence towards his family, his sons and wife. She had retreated into her fragile shell, barely noticing her toddler and teenage sons that had been left to fend for themselves.

Rare occasions, when she would smile to Daryl, or touch his cheek and tell him he was a good and kind boy, she had almost been lucid and her old healthy self. Her mind had reeled, and she had remained in the darkening path of self-destruction.

Sometimes Daryl felt guilty that Merle hadn't seen that side of their mother during the last year. He'd been forced to work, which had eventually led him to steal the petty cash of the garage and thrusted into the life of crime and juvenile detention centers, and prison.

When their mother had died in the house fire that had destroyed their home, the Sheriff's department had deemed it an accident. despite Daryl and Merle always suspected it was her final and only way to get away from Will Dixon.

"Yeah, I know what ya mean," he said, nodding.

He knew the thought of his mother was plain and clear on his face, even though she couldn't remember that he'd told her about his mother, but he couldn't muster enough strength to hide that side or keep up a brave face.

So, when she looked back at him, she saw the sadness etched in each shadow, prominent where the light did not illuminate his skin. She saw the glistening in his eyes, before he blinked, forcing those tears back and not allowing himself to feel anymore, which came easier and easier every time.

Her empathizing look was too much, and he averted his gaze, seeing only from the corners of his eyes how she nodded in silently.

They drove on in silence, passing the welcome sign of the town of Bethel.

Once they passed the diner, and the gas station, she told him to head down the road, until he'd see a large white building.

"Casino's right there."

He drove Jim's truck around the corner to the parking lot that was basically empty.

He didn't bother to count the three cars parked here and there, or an empty and partially crushed shopping cart in the middle of the concrete area something to fill the space.

This was barely a casino, and even questionably legal one at that.

Scoffing a little, Daryl couldn't help but think how the parking lot would be full if it was in Las Vegas.

Morning or evening, or even night time, the casinos were always jam packed full and parking lots that spread out around the large establishments were always busy, valets running around like ants. Sometimes it was entertaining to watch them from the high above rooms of hotels.

It was far easier to get confused with time at those places, since none of the casinos had windows or clocks on the walls. The absence of natural light was apt to fuck up minds about time. Something he was awfully familiar with. He'd lived in Las Vegas long enough to know how the casinos operated. And Merle had been gambling for most of his life and not just with his money.

There was also the fact that Las Vegas casinos had bright exteriors with matching, or even brighter, interiors as well. The insides were a fireworks kind of a light show, with all the possible colors and anything one could imagine. The outside of Crazy Cherry, though, had not been altered. It was still the same greying and weather worn wood as it had always been, but Daryl remembered the inside was dark, with rare blinking lights and lighted areas in general. The place used more black lights and odd color schemes than brightness to lure in the people.

"The owner? He a part Native or something?" Daryl asked, as he unbuckled his seatbelt. There was a seatbelt light flashing on the dashboard immediately, but he ignored that.

"He claims he is," her answer came short and stilled, until she continued, "I think he is lying and using the system for his benefit."

He scoffed, arching his brow as it emphasized the already skeptical view he had about the place. The detective in him seemed to have a better understanding of the Crazy Cherry casino now.

"Drugs?" Daryl asked, suddenly realizing that it might have not been about Jim and the man who had hired him to do this job, but it was plain and simple about him being in the wrong place at the wrong time asking the wrong fucking questions.

She glanced at him, pursing her lips tightly and then turning to look out the window. Her silence spoke to volumes and he let it at that. This town was the only place she could remember as home. It wasn't any wonder that she didn't want to talk about or think about the black stain in the heart of it. It was like him finding out and being disappointed when he had found out that Merle was dealing drugs back in Orchard Hill.

Dogs continued to whine and move back and forth in the back seat and Daryl glanced around him habitually, twisting slightly in his place. It took him a moment to spot the old truck at the far end of the parking lot, partially hidden behind two large dumpsters.

"There," Daryl said, relief in his voice, as if the car might have been stolen or removed from the premises.

He had fixed it by himself over the years. Simple blue vehicle with chrome parts was probably the single most expensive thing he owned, if you didn't count the weapons.

He could easily live without them but living without a car was nearly impossible. He'd used his own money on that, and after prison, money was scarce and work even less, so it hadn't been easy.

He had a good reason to be relieved that his truck was still there.

Still, he kept eyeing around, almost expecting someone to jump from the shadows and shoot at them. At that point, it was a legitimate fear. His problems had started the moment he'd set foot in the casino, but that still could be just a ruse from dickheads like Jim.

Nevertheless, he swerved the vehicle around and stopping it next to his truck he climbed out after killing off the engine. Beth too followed him out from her own side, letting the panting and whiny dogs out at once, and made her way around Jim's silver truck. She glanced around, slightly more carefree and innocent than Daryl, and made her way to the blue truck.

A gust of wind tousled her hair and she shuddered slightly, something he couldn't help but notice.

Her hair had been windswept like that before.

During his time in the prison, still certain that she had been killed in the Grady Memorial incident, he had often dreamed about her hair and how his fingers had combed through the golden strands, and how she had smiled at him, and held him close.

It made his chest ache for a brief second, before he shook himself out of his daydreams and spotted Beth standing next to him shivering rather miserably.

"Get back in the truck," he growled, glaring up at her as she continued to watch him kneel with great deal of difficult and fish out a set of keys from somewhere under the chassis just as he had found a set of keys in Jim's truck.

The four dogs sniffed around the blue truck, before bouncing away and beginning to investigate the entirety of the parking lot.

"I can help," she insisted. The air seemed to be harsh, wet and cold, with a biting wind suddenly. She wasn't wearing the warmest of clothing and was now judging her mishap of not taking a coat with her.

He climbed up, grunting and teetering to regain his balance and then proceeded to open the door hastily, before ducking inside the cabin of the vehicle, perfectly ignoring her protest.

She hovered behind him, peeking over his shoulders, as he continued to check the interior. He would have to sweep it for bugs if he had the equipment with him, or if he wasn't in a hurry, but as of now it seemed to be in order and still in the same exact condition, he had left it with. There were debris on the floor, wrappers of burgers and fries, few takeout boxes and a crushed box for pizza he had eaten a week earlier. Even the laptop he abhorred to use was still there.

He frowned as he glared at the computer. He'd never actually been this lucky in his life. Backing out of the cabin and standing up, he looked at Beth now, who stared back at him, waiting for him to speak.

She trembled as she cradled her arms around herself, "What is it?"

"Thinking we gotta change trucks," he replied, mumbling low, looking over Beth's head and staring at the empty parking lot. There was something about it that made him suspicious.

"Why?"

"If they didn't find this truck they're just some sloppy rent-a-cops, but casinos don't use pisspoorly trained slobs. Ain't ever been that lucky in my life. And Jim's a lot, he's a douche, but he ain't a slob. He's bad at what he did for living, and he's bad at life, but he knew how to find a missing vehicle. There might be a tracker in there," he grumbled, barely moving his lips. He looked at Beth, noticing how she was looking confused.

"I don't understand," she said, frowning and shaking her head, "It's your truck and I thought…"

Her brows knit together, and her lips pressed into a tight line. He could see her visibly shuddering, but he was observant enough to realize that it wasn't from the cold.

"It'll keep us safe," he said, softer and calm, touching her shoulder without thinking. She jumped, nervously, as she tried to smother back her obvious emotions. It made Daryl feel awkward and he felt stupid, that couldn't come up with anything to say to her. She remained silent, hiccupping once or twice, as she drew in a stuttering breath before she nodded and hummed her agreement.

"We gotta go. Get everything from the back seat and the glove compartment, move them over to Jim's truck. I move the shit from the back," he continued, hoping it didn't sound bossy or overly insensitive to her.

Rose nibbled her bottom lip with her teeth. She felt still a bit shaken, unable to understand why people she had never met were after her, but at the same time feeling awkwardly reassured about Daryl's promise of keeping her safe.

Wiping her cheeks, she nodded at Daryl, and crawled into the passenger seat of the truck through the open door and kneeling on it reached into the back.

Daryl's face dropped a little at the sight of her pert bottom wiggling in front of him, before he bit himself in the tongue and stomped around to the tailgate, thinking how unfair his life was.

It certainly would have been easier to get the clothes from the outside, but instead she managed to gather the large black bag and the clothes thrown on the floor of the truck's back seat into her arms and maneuver them onto the front seat.

Rose continued to chew the inside of her cheek as she eyed at the clothes that were surprisingly few for a guy who seemed to have lived in his truck for quite a while. She checked the back seat one more time and then, plopped onto the front seat, and began refolding them into the bag.

Most of the clothes had dog hair on them, as well as some droplets of drool, which she cleaned off guiltily. Some of the shirts were ripped here and there, and she could tell that they had been worn years and years. Sleeves had been cut and ripped off from some of the flannel shirts, and she spotted how he had patched a pair or two of his jeans himself. Chuckling to herself, she finished packing his clothes, and then turned to face the front, popping open the glove compartment and beginning to rifle through it.

First item her fingers touched was a locked box, and she pulled it out looking disinterested in at it. Placing it on top of the bag full of clothes, she reached back in the glove compartment pulling out the second item, a small pouch with a gun in a leather holster and a badge from Atlanta PD.

She gasped a little, possibly out of surprise, and touched the golden embossing on the heavy metal item. Her fingers ran over the numbers on the bottom. The black strap over the shield was askew but she didn't try to straighten it. The four numbers on the bottom were too familiar.

"I've never been with a cop before," she giggled as she laid on the large bed, leaning onto her elbows, sheet thrown over her bare bottom, and ran her fingers over the leather case and the metal of the still shining badge.

"Ain't ever been with a good girl like ya," a man replied, with a low grumble, his eyes still closed as he laid on his back, arms spread, and head slightly tilted to the other direction.

"Good girl? Is that all you see?" she asked, still reading the identification card of the APD badge.

"Well, ain't ya?" he answered with a question and turned to face her.

She sighed and smiled then, "Fine. But only if you're a good man."

He huffed, but said nothing specific, just grabbed her by her waist and pulled her closer. The badge fell on the floor as she yelped and giggled now louder as his beard began tickling her neck, her fingers tangling into a chain that was around his neck.

"Good man," she whispered, barely audibly, and blinked her eyes in disbelief.

Most of her memories, glimpses or flashes of them, were just words spoken in darkness. This however was the first clear memory she'd had since the accident. Still she couldn't see the face of the man she had been in bed with, but the badge numbers were the same.

Her surprised expression changed suddenly, as she thought of something.

Was that man Daryl? Or was it someone else? Who could it have been? And if it was someone else, why did Daryl have this badge?

She looked over her shoulder hastily spotting Daryl dragging something heavy off the flatbed of his truck before she returned to look at the badge in her hands. She remembered herself thinking how he was tall, dark and handsome, and she remembered how he instantly felt like someone she could trust. But if they had been lovers, married or something in between why hadn't the man said anything?

And if he was someone trying to hurt her, why hadn't he? He had had ample opportunities to kill her, or hurt her, over the course of the past 24 hours. All he would have had to do was to step aside and let that Jim guy shoot her like he had specifically suggested.

Instead, he had recognized her in the diner at first. He had called her Beth.

"Beth…," she whispered to herself, brow knitting together as she tried to catch the thought it had brought to her mind by the horns.

"Beth. Doodlebug. Bethy," her voice lower than a whisper now. She felt hot tears pricking her eyes.

Daryl Dixon had recognized her, called her Beth and not bothered to tell her that they knew each other. And as if that hadn't been enough, there had been fondness, with great sadness, in his eyes when he had looked at her, holding onto her hand so gently the memory of it still felt like feathers floating around her.

He might be many things, scary things even, but he wasn't here to hurt her. If anything, he was just waiting for her to recognize him in return.

The truck shook suddenly, almost seesawing from side to side, as he jumped on the ground before pulling that heavy trunk onto the edge. She heard him swear out loud from pain, before he grunted holding his side.

She swiveled around in her seat and felt a blinding twinge of pain shoot through her skull, bouncing around in her brain and nearly disabling, paralyzing her legs. Panic stricken fear spread from her toes to her head, and she moved to shove the badge back into the small pouch she had found them from and reached into the glove compartment for one more time. Her hand touched something cool, and as she pulled back, she heard a clanging of metal.

The cool, metallic item on the palm of her hand were dog tags. In her memory, she had touched a chain, that…

"Thanks."

His voice startled her as his hand swooped in from behind her and grabbed the chain from her grasp. She jumped aside, almost feeling guilty for looking at the intimate items of his without a specific permission.

The man didn't seem to be upset or angry, though. She watched him swiftly looping the chain over his head, and as he let go of the tags jiggled against his chest for a second before he tucked them under his shirt.

"S-Sorry," she stammered, still frazzled by the memory, "Didn't mean to pry."

"Hmm," he grunted, taking the pouch from her hands, and stuffing it into the black backpack she had just finished filling with his clothes. He didn't look at them, and soon turned around, tossing the pack onto the floor of Jim's truck.

He had already emptied the big metal box he had locked securely on the flatbed of his own truck and moved the content onto the silver truck's toolbox. She frowned once, her mouth opening and closing for a second like she wanted to say something but refrained herself quickly. Instead, she watched him peeking at the backseat of the truck he was planning on abandoning. Unless he was looking into taking the dog hair with him, it was already empty, but he looked completely disinterested in the car, and instead slammed the doors shut on one side.

"Bring the box," he said, then, and she realized she was still holding, clutching, the locked box in her arms. With that, he walked around Jim's silver truck and waited for her to follow him with the box.

Most of Daryl's life fit in that damn, blue truck. His work, all the details, were stowed away securely in his brain, and he rarely stored any of that information anywhere else. He was holding onto many strings and placing them somewhere other than his memory would be too much of a risk to get them tangled.

The box she carried contained items that had cost a pretty penny to duplicate. A vast array of fake IDs, some variations of his official IDs, several types of badges – some that even carried a valid badge number – and passports along with keys to safety deposit boxes and bus terminal lockers around the country. Not that they contained much, but he had divided small sums into several places just in case. Right now, he had no one to turn to if he was caught in a situation where he might have needed help.

He gave another glance at Beth, who was now teetering towards him with her cargo. She had a frown on her face, making her look pained.

"Here," she slurred, thrusting the package to Daryl. She staggered onto the car and sat down on the front seat. She gasped the moment her bottom hit the seat, feeling something poke into her side and back. Turning around, to see what it was, she saw a large and dangerous looking crossbow propped up against driver's seat.

"'m gonna move it," Daryl replied, stepping around the vehicle and proceeding to move the weapon. As he did that, a plastic zip lock baggy filled with smaller pouches and few orange medicine tubes, fell onto the seat from his pocket. Second thing falling onto the floor of the car was a flask with a leather case around it. Daryl cringed and reached to pick up the flask. It'd been a gift from Rick Grimes. Nowadays, Daryl thought that Grimes might want he stupid thing back.

Daryl wasn't fast enough, though, to reach for the zip lock bag, and Beth's fingers grabbed it from the seat before he even managed to make a move.

"These pills…? What are they?" she asked, glaring at the content of the clear zip lock bag in disdain.

Daryl grunted once, twice, before shrugging his shoulders, "Antibiotics, painkillers, a variety of them."

It was an evasive answer, because even the dumbest person would have guessed that the crystalline pebbles of blue and clear hues were not neither antibiotics or painkillers.

"You can't self-medicate yourself with these! You really need to see a doctor!" she inhaled sharply and protested quickly, staring at him defiantly, "Do you even know what these are for? Antibiotics are for specific bacteria, and you shouldn't play with them, like they are candy!"

Daryl ignored her complaint. She didn't need to know that most of these were bought by Merle for his various infections, and Daryl had found them only because he had found Merle's stash in his truck years back. He continued to putter with the crossbow, and the flask, and pretended to be checking the rest of the stuff they had moved from his truck to Jim's, when he realized that she had stopped talking and was now sitting there, staring at the zip lock bag in her hands.

At first his gaze darted outside, the dogs hadn't barked or alerted them in any way, but he wasn't sure he could rely on that. Nothing moved out there, the dogs were panting at her side of the vehicle sniffing the side of the truck. Despite of that, his hand still flew onto his waist, reaching for a knife he usually had hanging there in a sheath. Unfortunately he wasn't in his own clothes, and the knife he had at hand was in the large sailor bag on the flatbed.

"What's wrong?" he opted asking instead.

"I don't know why I know that," she said frowning, and lifted her gaze to meet him.

"Why do I know that?" she asked. There was no hesitation in her voice, she wasn't frightened either, rather, she wanted answers, "And why I can't remember the reason by myself!"

"Memory loss," he replied, sounding like a Captain Obvious when he said it, and resorting quickly to chewing the inside of his cheek.

She frowned, looking slightly angry, "That's not helpful at all."

She shrugged her shoulders, and handed over the bag to him, as if to dare him to take some of the pills inside. The pain in his stomach was unbearable, and he was willing to take a risk with the antibiotics and the variety of painkillers than wait for an opportune moment for him to find a shady doc, because anyone after them would be staking any hospital or emergency room from here to Mexico.

"I know," he replied and dug into the bag, pulling out a sheath of pills, and popping two out of the case.

Without water, he threw them in his mouth and swallowed, cringing as the dry pills grated down his gullet.

"What was that?" she asked, blinking few times, and looking worried all over.

"Just some Oxy," he shrugged.

Rose reached forward, grabbing the package from him and looking down at the labels stamped on the tin foil.

"Oxycodone? And you took two?!" she blurted out, looking up at him, her eyes wide and shocked.

"I'm a big guy," he shrugged back a half assed reply.

Her expression, that had until now, been frightened at worst and puzzled at best, shifted from disbelief into a pout and then into a goal-oriented determination. Looking at him, she arched her brow and asked, "What the hell do you do for a living?"

The painkillers were starting to take the edge of the throbbing, burning pain and he winced at the question.

"I hunt down things, people, whatever they want me to hunt down. I'm a bounty hunter, bodyguard, a hired gun, sharp shooter. I'm pretty much whatever they want me to be. Anything for a gun and a poor paycheck."

"Now, if you want to see me do striptease, I suggest you turn around."

She blinked once, stammered and then hurriedly turned to face her dogs, and began intensively scratch them from behind their ears one by one. He didn't take long to change, and when Rose finally turned around, he was wearing black ripped jeans, a black shirt, with wrinkled sleeves, and a coat that looked like it was sewn together from various coats. He tossed a piece of leather, on the driver's seat and then, she saw him slide two weapons into the holsters he'd draped over his shoulders, before tossing a large knife onto the dashboard.

"Call 'em dogs, we better get going," he grunted. Rose nodded gruffly, and vowed to drag the answers out of him once they were on the road before whistling shrilly and commanding the dogs to jump onto backseat.

Daryl stopped at the intersection as if to ponder which direction he should turn next. The two options, left or right, were different as night and day in comparison. If he was to turn to left, he'd eventually find them at the Canadian border, the right turn on the other hand would lead them to Seattle, and further down the coast line.

He looked at Beth sitting next to him deep in her own thoughts, and continued to chew his bottom lip once, twice. Wanting to ask her which way she wanted to go, he remained still at the intersection for longer than he should have.

Just as he was about to turn to right, they both saw a black, large vehicle meander past them. His jaw tensed immediately, and he clutched once more the wheel. Her face seemed more surprised, but then he heard her gasp slightly.

"There were men inside," she said, as if it was odd to see a vehicle with passengers.

In this case, and at this moment, Daryl was inclined to agree with the oddness. It was after all the first vehicle they had seen on the road, and it was clearly coming from out of town.

The black vehicle slowed down, deliberately as they had spotted the silvery truck of Jim's and as both Daryl and Beth stared, the driver stopped, and hit the reverse.

Time seemed to slow down nearly to a crawl when the black RV backed slowly in front of them at the intersection and four or five men stared at them from the front windows.

Daryl Dixon knew at least one of them.

At first the man in the black RV stared at him blankly, but then he saw the creepy, smug smile that began curling at the corners of his lips, making his own heart sink, and blood run colder than ice.

It was Joe.

Joe Barlow wasn't a good man.

He had never been a good man, in the most honest meaning of the term. That is, unless there was a hefty paycheck in it for him to at least pretend he was one.

Everyone who knew Joe knew that the man had a twisted moral compass, if he had any. Daryl's opinion on him was that he had missed that line when they had dealt out morality.

Of course, he could be as moral as a man of his standings could possibly be, if it aided him, but he rarely abided by the norms of the world he lived in. He didn't have any qualms murdering women and children if it got him paid, and Daryl had witnessed that at first hand.

It was a rare occasion when he had been even remotely decent with other people.

And Daryl Dixon could name that one miserable time Joe had had any patience and decency with him.

Daryl had been transported to the Georgia State prison, immediately after the trial. No goodbyes, no nothing. It had been only two weeks in the joint when suddenly, the Warden had informed him that they were transferring him to another prison.

Transfers were everyday shit. Being transferred to a maximum-security prison in another state for no good reason wasn't. ADX was a maximum-security prison that housed inmates deemed too dangerous, too high profile or too great a national security risk for even a standard maximum-security prison. There were terrorists, various mass murderers and other dangerous criminals. Daryl's crime called no such prison. His sentence wasn't a federal offense, and one could easily argue his sentence was against all common sense. Of course, it wasn't rocket science to try and figure out why he had been transferred there and who had orchestrated it.

But, a former Marine Sniper, a former police detective in prison such as ADX was a death sentence for him. First two steps inside the prison complex and he had been deemed dead man walking.

Joe on the other hand, labelled as violent and dangerous man, had been serving his very much federal crime sentence in the Alcatraz of the Rockies. Daryl had found out later, that Joe Barlow had been sitting a double sentence for drug smuggling and a lieu of bank robberies with a lethal weapon. He'd managed to kill eight security guards and several police officers before he was caught. It was clear that his place was inside the walls of ADX.

It was – and yet not so much – strange that they had released him just a week after Daryl had met the man.

At first, Daryl hadn't cared about anything.

He had been cold and numb, and death would have been just a new punishment for him. He had felt like there was no life left for him outside the prison walls anyway. He'd resigned from life the moment Beth had been declared dead.

First two weeks he'd managed to hold his own.

An ex-cop in a prison, where news traveled wide and fast, wasn't exactly having a blast. He'd had a choice to make a petition and chicken out, ask the warden to place him in protective custody, but he was a Dixon, and if he had learned anything from his no good of a father, it was that Dixons were not cowards.

It became painfully clear that he wouldn't be able to hold his own for the full two years of his sentence. Three weeks in at the ADX and he'd gotten in a fight that left him black and blue all over, with a cracked rib. Despite the doctor offering painkillers, he had refused and suffered in silence.

It had been around that time he'd met Joe Barlow.

He had been in his own cell, sprawled in the narrow bed, when Joe had appeared on the doorway and looked down at him in a way that had made him uncomfortable for days.

"Look at ya, boy," he had said, shaking his head and grinning smugly, "Nothin' more pathetic than an ex-cop in jail. You got your tail between your legs and you look ready to make an exit out of your body."

He'd grunted as a reply and sat up ignoring the pain in his injuries. He still could remember the feeling, the resolve in his mind, he would fucking die fighting if that had been it.

He'd entered Daryl's cell and sat down on a chair on the opposite side of the small hole in the wall, resting his arms to his knees, and leering at Daryl like he was a piece of pot roast. He could bet most of the inmates would stare just about anything and imagine pot roast, because that was hardly on the menu.

"The fuck ya doing here?" Daryl had growled at the older man and glanced at the hallway that had been worryingly empty.

"Right now, you're wondering if I'm here to shiv you, if you're gonna live to see tomorrow. And I can answer that question for you."

"Ain't asking shit."

Joe had laughed. A full laughter, straight from his gut, head thrown back, and mockery in his eyes.

"I'm here to tell you, that you're gonna be fine. I got your back. I'm Joe Barlow."

"I don't swing that way," Daryl had said, jolting up and pacing few times expecting to be attacked.

He ain't no Beth. He ain't no Paul either.

"Well, you're a mighty fine example of male gender, and I wouldn't mind at all to tap that ass and make you beg for more, but ain't diddling with ex cops. Other than making sure you get out alive," he'd replied back and laughed at Daryl's defensive attitude.

"So ya can own a cop outside when this is all over?"

"I doubt they are going to let you back in the police force. But you're right, my friend, this is purely a business deal. You're gonna own me a favor. And I'm going to cash it one day."

"Rather stay here," Daryl grumbled.

Joe shifted in the seat, and leaned forward, closer to Daryl.

"I've made a deal, with someone on the outside. And that means, I get something I want out of this deal. But since I get what I want, I kinda have to make you untouchable in here. Which wasn't part of the deal I made. So, I do this, and you owe me. That's how it works, boy," Joe said, his voice low and hushed.

Daryl noticed his fingers crossed as he cracked his knuckles once or twice and the sinister look in his eyes.

"With who?"

"That's me to know, boy. Ain't yours to find out."

Joe had kept his promise, though. Daryl had made out alive ADX after two miserable years. He'd forgotten the man altogether because he hadn't come collecting his debt, but now, seeing Joe and his not-so-merry men staring at them through the glass of their black RV made Daryl wish he had collected that debt a long ass time ago.


	9. After Injury, A Scar Makes You Whole

**A/N: This chapter contains graphic violence, please proceed with caution.**

Joe and his men exited the big vehicle grinning and chuckling like they were a bunch of college kids, and they were on a fun little road trip. Daryl glared at them, as he clutched the steering wheel hard, wringing the skin of his palms painfully against the plastic.

"Who are they?" she whispered, panic in her voice now. The high pitch in her speech and probably the fear that was rising inside of her, made the dogs alert. All four of them crowded to poke their faces through the gap between the two front seats and whined out loud in worry.

"They're… they're nobodies," Daryl replied at first, voice husky, but then he continued, "They're scum. Bounty hunters and mercenaries."

He wanted to add that he was both, a bounty hunter and a mercenary for pay as well. He knew he wasn't any better than the men standing outside. He had done things he didn't want anyone to know, and he wasn't sure he wasn't going back to prison if he ever was caught.

But looking at Beth now staring wide eyed at the men outside made Daryl bite his tongue; he didn't want to spook her any more than she already was.

"What do they want?" Beth asked, her eyes still on the men in front of their car but leaning closer to Daryl.

"I have a pretty good idea about that, but…" Daryl started. He felt the weight of the weapons securely in the holsters against his sides. He glanced down at Beth's feet, chewing his cheek and cursing himself for not getting the crossbow ready. It would have given him the element of surprise he could have used right about now. He could have shot Joe right though the windshield.

"Dixon!"

His lips curled into a growl at the sound of his name being shouted out loud by none other than Joe, and it distracted him from thinking up a plan. The sound of Joe's voice made one of the dogs growl out loud.

"Don't let them out," Daryl hissed, "Don't want them to get killed. They'll shoot. I can't let it happen."

Looking at Beth and then back at the six men standing between their vehicle and the RV, he chewed the inside of his cheek as he brought the truck's engine to a halt.

Beth quickly glanced at her dogs and pushed them gently back to the seat behind them. She couldn't risk them getting out, especially since Atka and Desna seemed to be stressed out by the sudden stop and the strange men staring at the vehicle.

"Sit, stay," she said, sternly but soothing, nevertheless. All the dogs tumbled and rolled in their places, anxiously trying to find a loophole in her command. She saw it in their eyes and chastised them by commanding them once again to sit and to stay still.

"Don't open your door. Climb out this side, and stay behind me," Daryl instructed quickly, before reaching to open the door.

"But…" she began, but then nodded hastily. Daryl nodded in reply, mirroring her reaction, and then opened the door and climbed out slowly, keeping his arms down, hoping the men didn't get a whiff of his guns, hoping they were stupid enough not to notice.

"Daryl Dixon, long time no see," Joe, grey haired man, said with a raised voice and made the men he had with him murmur out of surprise.

"You know him?"

"What the fuck, Joe?"

Beth gasped inside the truck as she was about to climb out, as she heard the words. She stopped, looking up at Daryl.

"Barlow," Daryl replied, lips pressed into tight line, hissing between his clenched teeth.

From his peripheral vision, he saw Beth moving now and reaching to grab a better hold from the door. Daryl stepped in front of her deliberately, as she was about to climb out of the car, making sure there was no proper line of sight from the men to Beth.

"Stay behind me," Daryl repeated his order, never averting his gaze from the group of men. He heard the dogs whining and growling inside the truck, attempting to jump onto the front seat.

"Stay!" Beth snapped out an order and the dogs stopped their aim to get out of the vehicle but remained agitated. Daryl glanced at the dogs. He hoped that they were well trained, because she would be crushed if these morons would kill her dogs.

As she made it out of the truck, he kept himself there, in front of her as a shield from these scumbags. If he was to take the bullets, she'd survive. This time.

Joe stood there smugly, but Daryl noticed he was standing behind his men. An idea dawning in his mind, he reacted to Joe's smug expression staring at them back defiantly, making sure they knew that he would draw his last breath defending Beth, despite he was certain they were too damn stupid to figure that one out. He made sure Beth was behind him, despite she was trying to see what was going on. Aware that it was a "Hail Mary" at best he still refused to give in.

"Daryl Dixon and a pretty girly," Joe chuckled, bobbing his head at Beth, who clutched Daryl's arm like a lifeline, "Let me guess, this is the Beth G- -," Joe continued, but was quickly interrupted by Daryl.

"The fuck you want?" he growled at the grey-haired man. He had deliberately interrupted him, and it wasn't lost from Joe either. He grinned and chuckled, before he shrugged his shoulders. Daryl had played right into his hand, and it made him curse himself.

"Heard about a big bounty that would set us good for quite some time," Joe Barlow replied with a voice demanding for submission, and grin on his face that exuded superiority. His manners irked Daryl to no end, but he remained quiet anyway.

"You owe me a debt, boy," Joe then uttered, maliciousness in his voice.

Daryl shuddered before he reached back and touched Beth's side. She grabbed a hold of his arm, clutching tighter and tighter until Daryl could feel her short nails digging into his skin.

 _Pain is your friend!_

He'd learned it the hard way after his mother had died, he'd been taught that several times over at basic training. Beth's nails hurting his arm weren't an exception, they were the solution; the pain, the piercing pain registered by his pain receptors kept him sharp in a situation where many others would have given in.

He ground his teeth together hard. He wasn't going to give in.

He wanted to shout at the grey-haired man that he wasn't going to pay his debt with someone else's life but managed to force himself to keep quiet. Nothing good would come up with him spitting in Joe's face and telling him off.

"So, how's you wanna do this? Cos we don't necessarily need both of 'em alive," a man, with a shaggy hair and scraggly beard drawled, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and giving Beth a look that made anger wash over Daryl.

"Ya right about that one," another of his men chuckled, "Give up the girl," he continued, grinning equally disturbingly.

Beth whimpered out loud, putting two and two together. She realized now, painfully so, that it was her they were after. Daryl was either a hindrance or obstacle, and they would kill him to get to her.

"No," she whispered, and her grip tightened. Daryl heard it, felt her nails digging into her skin deeper, but he bit his tongue to keep quiet. He had no time to calm her down, his brain was in over drive trying to figure out their way out of this mess.

"Yeah, boy, give up the girl!" the shaggy hair said, chuckling out loud, "Can keep her safe for ya! Them little'uns are the best!" he continued before cackling out loud.

"Shut it," Joe barked at the man and Daryl's focus snapped back onto the group of men, "She ain't for you."

"Hey, I said it first! Piece of tail like that, can't let it go to waste!" the shaggy haired man began, trying to defend his words to Joe.

"I said shut it!" Joe barked an order, loud enough to make his voice echo and bounce from tree to tree.

A flock of birds, spooked by his shout, took to flight and scared two of Joe's men. They muttered to themselves under their breaths, spooked and uncertain, shifting their weight from foot to foot nervously.

Daryl saw it first. Joe didn't have an absolute control over his men, even though they were still too afraid to rise against him. There was a rift between them, and it was growing.

He'd need a bigger distraction, bigger than a flock of birds, to draw the attention from Beth and him in order to be able to execute a wildly stupid idea that had just popped into his brain.

"She's worth more - -," the shaggy haired man began, clearly rebelling, trying to establish himself as a bigger influence in the group than Joe.

Daryl would have wanted to know what he was about to say, but instead, he watched Joe sighing, making a face as he rolled his eyes, and then lift his hand up, and slap the man on the back of his head.

Joe'd had always had a short fuse, even though Daryl hadn't known him for a very long time. He had been in controlled chaos when Daryl had been in prison with him. He had instigated fights, but never taken a part of them. He was a leader, and he wasn't afraid to break the subjects' spirits if that what it called for. But he knew that abusing his minions in front of one another was a sure-fire way to get them eventually fight against him.

"Hey!" the shaggy-haired man complained immediately.

"Shut up, you idiot," Joe barked back at the irritated man.

"Stay behind me, no matter what," he couldn't whisper much more, just to reinforce his order that she'd remain hidden behind him. She gave him a glance, one that Daryl had always been able to draw strength from. She believed that he could protect him, even if he knew it was a fool's hope. She nodded, despite her eyes were wide with fear, and she wanted nothing more than to run away; Daryl had seen that similar look in the eyes of deer while hunting.

"Boys," Joe's voice drew Daryl back to the moment and he looked at the older man, there was a gleam in his eyes that Daryl didn't like.

His instincts had never failed him, and they did not do so now either. He saw how Barlow reached for his side, and pulled out a Smith and Wesson pistol, slowly fiddling it before taking a better hold.

"Boys, kill the… bastard," Joe started, and Daryl watched defiantly how Joe and his men aimed their weapons, with a big dumb grin on their faces.

"NO!" Beth screamed and began tugging Daryl backwards, trying to pull him into the car, behind the door or behind the vehicle itself. With all the melee of weapons the men were holding at them, Daryl knew it would have been pointless. Jim was a paranoid crazy person but not even he had upgraded his truck with bullet proof windows.

Beth tried to pull him with her, but he didn't budge. Watching at the barrels of weapons trained at him in a haze of battle he'd gone through enough times while in active duty. Defiant and running on adrenaline, refusing to give in, but knowing it was certain.

So, he prepared himself to feel the pain that would inevitably tear through his flesh soon enough.

 _Beth needs to get out of this alive_ , he thought, interlacing his fingers with hers, just to calm her down, and more selfishly, to get even a fraction of the strength that was in her. He didn't think he could do this with integrity. He'd been afraid of pain, physical and mental alike, since he'd experienced them the first time. Beth on the other hand, any woman on this planet for that matter, was far stronger than her exterior let on.

 _My last breath for her life._

He hadn't protected her five years ago, and if this was his real punishment for that, he would die in agony.

Daryl clutched Beth's shirt as he pinned her behind his back, still holding onto her hand.

He felt her shudder, and bury her face in his coat, and let out a whimper.

She too was expecting the pain, or something akin to it. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to have a bullet tear through flesh. She hadn't been shot. At least, she thought so.

 _"Put the gun down."_

 _"Daryl?"_

 _"Shoot me instead, if that makes you feel better. Just let her go. Just let Beth go."_

 _"DARYL?!"_

"Daryl," she whispered, backing against the car frame.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled back.

* * *

The pain he had expected, didn't come, though.

No pain, no burning feeling inside of him, there was no bright light. The metal slug and shards didn't rip his flesh, he did not die.

He heard the shots that rang out through the air. He opened his eyes; he couldn't remember he'd closed them and looked at Beth who now grouched on the front seat of the truck.

Daryl looked over his shoulder at the men still standing, scuttling away from Joe and firing their weapons at random at him. Instead of shooting either of them, Joe had delayed his order for a fraction of a second, and moved his arm holding the pistol, shifting his aim to the man standing right in front of him, the shaggy haired man. He had aimed his pistol at the back of the head and pulled the trigger. The man died instantly.

Instinctively he ducked down, pulling Beth with him.

He looked at the blonde-haired woman's eyes, and yet again found himself mesmerized by the blue in them. Her expression was full of shock, but she didn't cry. Her breath was sped up, and he could feel the pulse thrumming inside of her wrists as he held her wrists. He let go of her hands before brushing her hair from her face and touched her cheek gently.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, and without waiting for her answer he ushered her inside the driver's seat. He touched her sides carefully, trying to make sure she was uninjured as inconspicuously as possible. It seemed that she wasn't hurt, and it calmed him down for a second.

She shook her head, shuddering as the adrenaline coursed through her body.

"I… uh… no," she stammered brokenly, and Daryl took it for face value. She wasn't hurt life threateningly.

"Stay there, please," he whispered. She nodded in an abrupt manner, still trembling like a leaf in a tree.

"Don't move."

"Wouldn't dream of it," she replied, giving him a small, hasty smile and making him scoff.

From the corner of his eyes he saw Joe continued firing.

"Len!" a man with a scraggly, disheveled beard shouted, as he jumped aside, looking down at the man, Len, bleeding on the ground, his brain matter leaking out of his ears. It made Daryl grit his teeth together and look away.

"Harley!" the black man with a bandanna tied around his head shouted, grabbing Harley's arm, and yanking him backwards.

Bandanna man and Harley stumbled back, both falling on the ground in a heap of panicky feet and arms. The other two men scurried towards the RV, but Joe turned around and shot the chubby bearded man with his Remington shotgun. He fell screaming out loud from pain.

"You shot me?!" the chubby man shouted, eyes wide from fear, at Joe. His weapon had flown from his hand when he fell, and he was now unarmed. Joe scoffed at the man's exclamation and turned back to the last three men standing.

"Dan!" a man with a beanie and a big nose screamed. Daryl could see he was distraught over seeing his friend getting shot but did nothing to aid him.

Glancing at the shot man, Dan, Daryl saw the black blood pumping out of his wound, just as the man coughed, spitting out a prodigious amount of blood. Seeing enough of gut injuries at war, Daryl turned to look away. The man groaned, falling on his back, and twitching once or twice before remaining still.

Now, it was two men dead on the ground from those he had brought with him. Joe had killed them first, and they hadn't seen it coming. The big nosed fellow in a beanie, still standing, tried to scurry away, trying to leave the fight. Daryl wasn't sure which one of them had fired at him, but he fell with a hole in the back of his skull.

Joe and the last two of his men kept firing at each other. Bandanna man and Harley scrambled towards the RV for cover, firearms pointed at Joe.

"JOE! What the fuck are you doing?!" the man with a bandanna shouted.

"Sorry about this, Tony," Joe said, and fired again. The bullet ricocheted from a rock on the ground, making Tony and Harley both duck for cover.

"Bastard!" one of them shouted, Daryl wasn't sure which one.

"I know," Barlow replied and chuckled.

Daryl could taste the metallic tang of blood in his mouth, as he continued to chew his cheek. He moved as quickly as he could, without anyone noticing him. He reached into the flatbed picking up the tire iron and skulked back to Beth.

"Here, just whack anyone who tries to get anywhere near you with this," he grumbled and glanced at the dogs, growling and whining in a chaotic mess at the back seat. She grabbed it, frowning, but nodding sternly.

He glanced from behind the open driver's side door at Joe. The other two men were still hiding away from Daryl's line of sight, but he still could see Joe aim at them.

He pulled the trigger, and the bullet left the barrel of his gun. Daryl watched how it hit the man called Harley in the middle of his right eye. He had moved out of his cover to get a better aim at Joe, or maybe at Daryl. If human eye would have been able see the bullet move in slow motion, all of them still alive would have witnessed Harley's eye explode like a water balloon pierced. His eye seemed to peel away from his skull and explode, as the bullet entered deeper, liquifying his brain and shattering the skull as it excited from the back of his head.

Harley dropped on the ground with a loud thud, flopping there like a flounder on dry land and as the synapses faded into nothingness, he was already dead.

"YOU FUCK!" Tony shouted, firing now a full clip worth of bullets at Joe's direction.

Daryl was almost certain he saw Joe being shot, as he once again ducked behind the truck door. Beth followed suit and grouched down behind the steering wheel. This time, he wore out loud, and reached for the pistol on his right side, and checked the clip.

He glanced at Beth and reloading and cocking the weapon. She blinked and looked back at him as she shook her head for 'no'.

"I have better chance now that there's only…" he began, but the gunshots stopping abruptly made him stop as well, and peek from under the door of the truck.

He climbed up on his feet, gestured Beth to stay put and stared at the last of Joe's men crawl from his cover and trying to bring his clearly injured arm up to point his weapon at Joe but failing miserably. Instead, Joe walked over to him, shrugging his shoulders, taking aim and firing, finishing the man on the ground for good.

Daryl stood there silently, not wanting to draw Joe's attention to them yet.

There was only one now. Only Joe.

Daryl could just aim at him and kill him but looking at Beth made him rethink it. He could distract the man so that Beth could escape. He just wasn't sure where she could escape to. She couldn't remember anything, and sending her to a place she wouldn't remember, even a place that seemed safe would probably send her reeling.

He motioned to Beth to stay silent just as he grouched down, circling around the truck door ajar, and aimed his weapon at Joe. His training took over, everything taught to him and everything learned at the field.

He would kill him.

"What a shame."

Joe Barlow's voice was not apologetic, nor sad.

There was a hint of laughter and amusement in it instead. He stood over the body of the last of his men and kicked his leg with his boot and scoffed.

His attention was on the dead man on the ground, and it gave Daryl ample opportunities to move closer. Careful not to rattle pebbles on the asphalt, or kick the shell casings of the fired bullets, he chose each of his steps cautiously.

Daryl was almost behind the older man, refusing to look at the body on the ground, and ignoring Joe's words and mannerisms.

"Oh well, they were useful for a while," he continued, holstering his weapons and turning his attention to Beth and Daryl. Or Daryl, as he was standing good eight feet from him.

Daryl raised his eyes and glared at Joe partly puzzled and partly with great deal of anger and hatred. He wasn't sure if he had surprised the man, or not, but if he had, Joe showed no signs of it.

"Daryl," he said, bobbing his head with an irritating grin on his mug, "Okay, now that we are done with them," he continued, "We better get going. There's bound to be a cop or two around the corner. There's always some goody-two-shoes who wants to call the cops when some shooting occurs. I'm sure you of all people are the last of us to want to get arrested."

"The hell makes you think - -," Daryl started, still clutching his pistol and keeping it aimed on Joe's head. He didn't know if it was Beth's presence in the car, watching him or if it was something else that held him from firing his weapon, but he snapped his mouth shut, glaring at the old mercenary murderously.

Joe chuckled, shaking his head.

"Still suspicious about people, aren't you?" he asked from Daryl, making the former sniper squint his eyes and scoff out loud.

It wasn't like Daryl had any reasons to trust people around him. Very few had earned that privilege from him, and even less of those were still around.

"People aren't trustworthy."

"Well, I can agree with that, boy. You're still an outdoor cat thinking you'll do well as an indoor cat. You haven't learned anything since I last saw you," Joe said, shaking his head again.

"Fuck you," Daryl barked. He still kept Joe at gun point refusing to lower his weapon. His outburst made Joe laugh out loud, though.

"I would, boy, you know that, but like you said, you don't swing that way," he replied to Daryl. It made him frown and shudder.

"Calm down. I was hired to help you," Joe continued, pausing for a second, before winking at Daryl, "Again."

* * *

Cesar Martinez had fought his way out of gangs when he had turned 20.

He'd been running with them since his mother had died, and his father had little by little lost all contact with the rambunctious boy he had been in his youth. Gangs, specifically Arañas, had been his family and he had defended them fiercely. He had been 13 when he had stabbed to death a man, and he had seen nightmares every single night. He had never been caught, which wasn't a huge surprise since the victim had been one from a rival gang.

He'd been caught with drugs in his possession when he'd been 16 and hence spent the next four years behind bars. He hadn't given up in prison, though. He'd studied hard, gotten his SATs, and his college degree and gotten into a program that helped him get out of the gang life. He'd been working for social services and CPS for few years, trying to help kids who were in the same situation he had been years before when he had met Poppy on some ridiculous field trip to an art gallery.

The girl from the other side of the track, from a wealthy family, with an education that he could only call foolish. Fine arts degree wasn't exactly Martinez's idea of an education that would provide for anyone. Maybe it was only for the rich and wealthy who wouldn't have to work a day in their lives if they didn't want to and just dabble at some art gallery once a month. But that was just him. He was the first one in his family ever to receive a college degree, as he had been always taught to value hard work.

And Poppy Blake wasn't one to have to work a day in her life if she didn't want to. Her father was wealthy enough to support even his daughter's grandchildren if need be. The moment she had waltzed into his life he'd known all of that.

Although, Poppy had been surprisingly different from her father. She had even been rather understanding when he had poured out his life story.

But now, standing outside the door of the Governor of Georgia, he was shaking from fear. He'd thought the Governor was a typical white, rich man with a god complex and entitled view of the world. He couldn't have been more wrong.

The door opened and Milton Mamet, Governor's personal aide, stammered, "He's expecting you."

Martinez nodded, straightened his suit jacket Poppy had bought for him and told he should wear, and adjusted his tie, entering the large office of his father-in-law.

He looked like a good and proper crime boss in his tailored suit, bright red tie and suspenders, with a cigar between his fingers and lips in a grin wider than his already broad shoulders.

"Welcome to the family, Cesar! Now that you're married to Poppy, you'll be glad to hear I'll have a job lined up for you that makes you able to provide for my princess," he said, grinning, but hardly in good faith.

* * *

The house was lit when Aaron Devereux got home from the office, carrying a bag of groceries through the front door. He heard it to the foyer all the way from kitchen; Gracie crying.

Slamming the door shut, dropping the grocery bags on the floor he stormed through the house into the kitchen, scared to death that something had happened to Eric and Gracie. It was moments like this that made him curse the moment he had decided that it was good idea for him to go back to work again.

He had missed his job and helping people, despite some of the cases being almost too much to bear. At least, and he could say this with tremendous confidence, he wasn't working back on Capitol Hill anymore.

"Eric?" he called out as he entered the kitchen. Frowning at the sight of his husband Eric seemingly fixated on the water swirling down the drain in the sink, and their adopted daughter Grace crying her eyes out as she tried to get Eric to notice her.

The scene that unfolded in front of him was almost inconsolable. Gracie, barely two years old, would probably forget this moment as soon as both Aaron and Eric were focusing solely on her, but what about Eric?

This wasn't like him.

Aaron kneeled picking up red faced and runny nosed Grace up in his arms and began soothing the child immediately. He bounced the baby up and down on his arms, until her cries were swallowed into hiccups and chest wrenching sobs.

"There, there," Aaron murmured, and smiled to the fair-haired child. Reaching for the roll of paper towels on the counter, ripping off a piece. It wasn't probably the best choice, or the softest choice but he needed something quickly. They were the handiest choice. He proceeded to wipe her eyes, dabbing the tears away from her cheeks. She fought him only a little and let him then wipe her nose and mouth as well.

As soon as he was finished, he made a face to Grace and tossed the tissue on the counter. She sobbed once, hiccupped twice and made a little smile.

"Let's see what's wrong with daddy," he murmured, stepping towards Eric, and touching his shoulder gently.

The red-haired FBI agent wasn't paying attention to his surroundings as if he was hypnotized by the water swirling down the drain. He had picked up Grace from daycare like he was sleepwalking, driven home quite possibly dangerously and breaking at least a dozen traffic laws, and now, he was just staring at the water trickling down the drain, swirling clockwise.

When Aaron touched his shoulder, catching his attention away from the drain, he jumped, and felt his heart leap into his throat.

"Jesus Christ!" he blurted out and before he could say anything more, he slapped his palm over his mouth, blushing heavily.

Aaron blinked once or twice, staring at his husband that never swore. Eric managed to look slightly guilty and startled at the same time, when his eyes finally landed on Aaron's, and the red-eyed and wet cheeked child in Aaron's arms.

"I'm sorry, love," Aaron breathed out loud, and smiled, touching Eric's cheek.

"No, I'm sorry," Eric huffed, shaking his head, reaching to touch Grace's face with both hands, and kissing her forehead. The child shook her head, trying to push Eric's hands away, but then she resigned as he kissed her forehead, apologizing abundantly.

"Oh, Gracie, I'm sorry!" Eric whispered, and huffed, as he stepped backwards. He breathed out the breath he had been holding in and turned to lean his palms against the edge of the sink.

He was shaken, rattled about what he had done and what had happened.

"Eric, what is it? Did something happen? At work?" Aaron questioned, still consoling Gracie, as she hugged him almost as if she wasn't about to let go.

"I don't know," Eric shook his head, "I'm not sure."

Aaron remained quiet, standing two feet from the love of his life, and held their child tightly. He had to raise his brow at Eric's words

"Hey, it's me you're talking to," he said softly, and smiled to encourage Eric to speak out.

Sometimes, not often, Eric seemed to clam down about the occurrences at work. They both had careers that required discretion, but they also had agreed years earlier that they wouldn't give the non-disclosure agreements enough power to ruin their relationship.

He looked at Aaron, and nodded his head slightly, "Yes. Yes, something happened."

His shoulders began to shudder, and he burst to tears, before Aaron could touch him again.

Hating the feeling of helplessness when Eric was feeling like this, he had to act quickly. Cooing to Grace that she was a good and brave girl, he lowered her down onto the floor of the kitchen. He then proceeded to find a toy for her, handing it over and watching how she quickly lost interest in her father, and began shaking the noisy toy in her small chubby fingers.

After that Aaron could completely give his attention to Eric. He hastily walked back to him, pulling him against his chest. Aaron hugged Eric fiercely, trying to coach himself to think that he wasn't disturbed by this at all, and trying to coach Eric to think that he had done nothing wrong.

Eric handled cases at the bureau that hardly ever caused an emotion reaction on him. White-collar crime and art forgery and theft didn't upset people the way violet crimes and terrorism did.

"Oh, God, I don't want to talk about it, Aaron," Eric sighed softly against Aaron's shoulder, while Aaron slowly stroked his back.

"What the hell happened?"

"Language," Eric reprimanded quickly and stepped back from Aaron, glancing down at Gracie with her toys. He stood there with his right hand on his hip, his lips frowning, but the corners tugging upwards to a smile.

That made Aaron roll his eyes and huff a little. He gave Grace a look, she was still totally devoted to her toy, and then back at Eric.

"I'm sure her childhood is now ruined, for hearing me say H-E-double hockey sticks," Aaron said, creating a euphemism in order not to upset Eric.

Eric chuckled, and shook his head.

"She is still too young to figure out swear words, Eric," Aaron replied, arching his eyebrow, "You're trying to change the subject."

"I am not," Eric's reply came staggered. He frowned and rolled his eyes. He gave an accusing glare at Aaron but then huffed in submission and turned around, crossing his arms to his chest. He casually leaned against the sink, feeling the edge of the counter top poking his lower back.

"Well, then you can tell me," Aaron insisted.

Eric pouted a minute, looking at Grace waving her toy and smiling to both now, before he took a deep breath and looked Aaron in the eye.

"I found out about a massive misconduct of justice in an investigation years ago," he began, making Aaron gasp slightly. His job at a human rights organization saw those cases day in and day out, and Eric could easily understand why he would be outraged and shocked.

"And because of that," Eric continued, "There was an officer in Atlanta, Georgia, who was tried and sentenced wrongly."

Aaron blinked once, trying to digest the information Eric had just divulged.

"I'm part of that mistake," Eric whispered.

"What? How?"

"They called the FBI, they needed assistance with the investigation," Eric sighed, wobbling over to the kitchen table and sat down on the chair.

Aaron squinted his eyes. Sometimes he had to wonder how Eric, his gentle and kind Eric, had even become an FBI agent.

Trying not to ridicule his words, Aron shuffled to the table, and sat down next to him, "That, my love, isn't being part of a mistake made by someone else."

"No. I know that," Eric nodded, closing his eyes, and huffing, "I know, but I got a visitor. A Sheriff from Georgia. He had worked with the wrongly accused officer before, and…"

Eric opened his eyes, looked directly at Aaron, "I found all the evidence the FBI had in their archives."

Aaron chewed his bottom lip and said nothing. He saw how Eric's face turned white, and how his eyes reflected fear.

"If I can see all the misinformation, mishandling of important evidence, blatant manipulation of witnesses and gross evidence tampering, I can't believe nobody saw it during the trial!"

Aaron nodded. The lawyer of the officer should have seen it. The judge signed for the case should have seen it. Even the district attorney should have seen it, despite it was his job to nail the criminals.

His fingers thrummed against the table top. Grace's cheerful giggling echoed in the kitchen, and the clock on their wall continued to tick away. A minute or two later, Aaron stood up, walked over to the cabinet. He opened the door, picking up two glasses and then reaching into the chilled storage for a bottle of red wine.

"Come on, tell me everything."

Eric pouted for a second, his demand to get Grace a babysitter before they began drinking dying on his lips as he frowned and nodded, agreeing whole heartedly.

* * *

"Ya gon' act like a deer in the headlights every fuckin' time I'm four feet from you?" Merle snapped at Rick Grimes as the former followed the latter into the large white house in the suburbs.

Rick was still frazzled that he had sought Merle Dixon out and asked for his help. Rick was even more puzzled that Merle, the man that seemed to be the embodiment of selfishness, had agreed to help him out. He wasn't sure if he was or if he should be suspicious about it.

He rolled his eyes, glanced at Merle Dixon rather rudely. The Sheriff held his tongue and refrained from answering the question he had asked. Instead, he climbed the three steps to the porch and opened the screen door, before reaching for his keys and unlocking the front door.

It was well past midnight as they had arrived back to the Grimes' house.

Rick could hope that the kids were already asleep, and that Michonne might be asleep.

"So, what do you know about Beth?" Rick asked then, keen to change the subject from him to the case at hand. As Rick opened the door into the foyer, he looked over his shoulder and felt shivers run down his spine as Merle entered after him.

Daryl had been very candid about his family. Merle's criminal past was well known by him. Inviting him into his home willingly was like fighting against every fiber of his being.

Dixon whistled and looked around him, grinning disturbingly.

"Well, ain't you got a pretty little house with only the Sheriff's paycheck," Merle chortled, "Ya sure ya ain't moonlighting somewhere?"

"He doesn't have to," Michonne replied, as she walked down the stairs looking at Merle with great deal of distaste.

She was wearing jeans and a bright red shirt that hugged her figure. She had a flowery scarf wrapped around her head and a large pile of folders under her arm.

"Oh yeah, ya married the Nubian queen," Merle cackled back at Michonne's answer, "Ya could probly just quit and become a trophy husband, arm candy or what they call 'em."

Rick rolled his eyes and sighed deeply.

He was starting to think this had been a bad idea bringing Merle an openly racist and all-around douche bag when it came to women to his house. Rick chewed his bottom lip and thought about all the times he'd seen a movie where a character slithered their way into the lives of an unbeknownst family.

"Oh, stop it Merle Dixon," Michonne beamed, smiling, and waving her hand at Merle, "We all know what a pussy cat you really are deep down."

Her smile turned from a cute and clever smile to that or a secretive know-it-all smile of hers that she had and wasn't afraid to use against Rick, or anyone stupid enough to challenge her.

Both Merle and Rick chortled, coughed and blushed.

Their reaction made Michonne chuckle out loud, before recomposing herself and walked past the two men into the kitchen. She gestured to them to follow her. They did as she asked for, following her rather docile, despite still suspicious of each other.

Rick walked to the kitchen table. He pulled the chair from underneath and sat down, placing his keys, wallet and cell phone on the counter. He continued to eye suspiciously at Merle who followed his example and sat down on another seat.

The older man shrugged his jacket off, revealing a sleeveless shirt underneath. Rick raised an eyebrow at it.

"What?" Merle barked at Rick and gave a once over on his shirt, "Do I have something on my shirt botherin' ya?"

"Daryl is definitely your brother, Dixon," Rick said, shaking his head.

"Whose brother ya think he would be, Officer Friendly? Yours?"

"Boys," Michonne said, with a warning in her voice, and placed two bottles of chilled beer on the table. She watched as the two men took the beers quietly and moved to pop the caps open.

While the two men had been squabbling silently, she had placed the folders she had been carrying on the table and brought out also a large brown box full of documents in front of herself.

"We should go through these," she said, and began spreading the sheets of paper and folders upon folders on the table, "I was also hoping to ask you few questions, Merle," she added giving a meaningful look to Merle.

"'suspected as much," he mumbled, eyes raking over all the papers and folders slowly, "What's them?" he asked before Michonne could continue.

"She and I called in some favors. That's the case files from the APD and FBI, as well as the court files and evidence logs submitted by both sides," Rick sighed, "She's been at them for hours.

Ignoring Rick's remark, Michonne rolled her eyes, and turned to face Merle, "What can you tell us about Beth, and the Greenes?"

"It's not like I spent my days stalkin' them," Merle complained and took a swig from the beer.

"No, but any small detail would help," Michonne nodded.

"She was always nice to me," Merle said, and Rick was almost certain he'd seen Merle's bottom lip tremble a little.

"She never assumed shit about me. Shit, she always said it like it is," Merle chuckled. Rick was fidgeting in his seat, as he grew rather unnerved over Merle actually praising someone.

"But last time I heard of any of the other Greenes was a long time ago, and Daryl was still in the joint," he shrugged his shoulders, before lowering his voice to a barely audible mumble, "Old Man Greene was living with the Songbird in some dingy small town in the northwest."

Michonne stopper writing, and Rick stopped Merle, "Wait a minute, Hershel Greene lives in Georgia! It's like an hour-long drive from where we are!" Rick protested, glaring Merle once again like he was about to murder his entire family with a chain saw, even though in Merle Dixon's case it might have been an illegal weapon.

"Yeah," Merle nodded looking all smug, "That was before Hershel decided to leave."

"What?" Michonne questioned.

"He left?" Rick asked, utterly stumped. Merle could see that there was still that small part of his mind that fought against the news he'd just heard.

"Yeah, the righteous man left his daughter all alone with her amnesia in some periphery."

"Wait a minute, back up for a second. Beth has amnesia?" Michonne questioned again and stopped the two men from continuing, "If she has an amnesia, I can't ask her to testify for Daryl."

Merle scoffed, huffing out loud as he shook his head, "Ya actually think that her family would let her testify for Daryl even if she could remember anythin'?"

Michonne frowned and gave him a shrug, not knowing what he meant.

"I'm sure the Greenes would rather see Daryl get fried than see the Songbird back with him," Merle explained, leaning forward, his elbows resting against the table, his legs sprawled like he was the king of the house.

"Her older sister, Maggie," Merle hissed practically spitting on the table, "That bitch wants nothing more than to see my brother hangin' on a noose! If she's gonna have her way, Beth ain't gonna be seein' Daryl even if she might remember him."

"Come on now, Merle, she just wants to protect her sister," Rick tried.

"I always thought she was an adult. I thought adults didn't have to ask their older sisters if they approve their choices," Merle growled back.

"But haven't you done the same thing to Daryl?" Michonne piped in, pursing her lips, and looking stern.

"Never said Daryl couldn't have a go with a woman," Merle grinned.

Michonne frowned, "Go on."

"Shawn Greene. That little boy… Ever since Daryl was released, he's been advocatin' somethin' worse for Daryl than prison. He wants him incarcerated and monitored 24/7. Too bad they don't know where the fuck to find him. I taught that boy well enough," Merle said, leaning back in his seat, "And maybe he picked up some shit while in the Marines, too."

"Okay," Michonne said, "I still don't understand why every single piece of evidence says that Daryl did this. That he was responsible for the deaths of Beth and this other woman, the Officer Lerner," she said, checking her papers quickly.

"It was just Daryl, Beth, that Lerner woman and all the cops that were arrested in that room for a good while. Rick came in later. Rick and the backup. I can think a thousand and one reasons for why Daryl was blamed!"

"And the Greenes are involved int his?" Michonne questioned.

"Don't know much about the rest of the Greenes. I ain't some walkin' encyclopedia of the Greene family," he grumbled, looking pleased that he had shocked both Michonne and Rick, "I jus' happen to know when she…" Merle continued, pausing for a second and then giving the couple a stern look.

"After the incident, she was rushed off to surgery. I don't know anything that was said, but she must have said somethin'! The cops showed up, arrested Daryl, Feds marched in and told everyone that Beth had died. She was then given a new identity! Ain't nobody asked her how she wanted one! And nobody sure as hell tried to figure out if Daryl was innocent or not!"

"Go on," Michonne said in a soothing manner.

"She woke up after a while, I guess. Don't know where she was at the time. Hershel went with her. The rest of the family stayed in Georgia. When she woke up, they found out she couldn't remember anythin'… They were then moved to another place, that dingy small town. I only found out about it when Daryl was given the job to find her."

"And how do you know about the job he was given? What he was supposed to do when he'd find her?" Michonne asked, her mind already immersed in the legal side of it all.

"Look, Daryl's a good boy. I ain't the best big brother and our Daddy was probably the worst there is, but Daryl never deserved the way he was treated. He was always the gentle one," Merle sighed, trying to sound tough, but both Rick and Michonne saw through the toughened exterior and the gritty voice.

"When everyone bailed out on Daryl and jumped the fuckin' ship," Merle continued, fiddling with his fingers, and glancing at Rick, who huffed as a reply to that glare, "And when he was sentenced to prison, I just wanted to help him. I took a job, and I swear it wasn't supposed to last this long. I knew the man was involved in the case, and I knew he had a lot of strings in his hands. Shit, he just wasn't going to let Daryl go so easy. He had bigger influence than I had expected. He pulled some of those strings and a puppet at the other end of it just started to dance and bow at him."

Rick was quiet, and Michonne looked sunken deep into her thoughts, as her pencil ran over the paper, taking notes.

"Daryl got shipped off to ADX, and that bastard in charge tricked me to work for him longer than I anticipated," Merle finished. He was quiet, rolling the half empty beer bottle in his hands, staring at the checkered table runner.

"When Daryl got out, he wanted to kill my brother," Merle continued then, looking up at Michonne, "Instead he came up with this devious shit to send him after Beth and Hershel and have him kill them. He prob'ly expected that Daryl would just off himself once he…. once he'd killed Beth."

"So, who is he?" Rick asked the obvious question hanging over their heads, leaning forward, his beer discarded by his side.

"Ain't tellin' ya. You just gotta figure out a case without knowin' who he is. He wants Daryl and Beth dead. He wants me dead, but he can't get to me because I run more of his criminally inclined businesses than he had expected, and I fuckin' know too much for him to just off me. He wants everyone involved that one incident dead. Including you, Rick," Merle snarled, looking straight at Rick. It was probably the first time he'd used Rick's first name and not spat out afterwards.

"Why?" Rick Grimes had to ask because he didn't have the specifics of the case like Merle seemed to have.

"You know too much."

"What about Beth?" Michonne interfered before Rick could divert the conversation to things that weren't relevant.

"She was still livin' in that dingy small town. That's it until Daryl went there. But I wouldn't get my hopes up. She still ain't right in the head anymore. Doesn't remember a thing."

"So, she won't recognize Daryl either?" Rick asked, realizing the bigger issue on this.

"Prob'ly not," Merle replied, bowing his head down and shrugging his shoulders. Rick could see Merle hadn't thought of that before, and now, as he had brought it up, the thought hit Merle like a ton of bricks. He watched as the older man began picking his fingernails, shaking his head and mumbling something incoherent. Michonne had stilled her writing and quickly wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

All three of them gave an understanding look to one another.

Beth couldn't remember any of the details before she was shot. She wouldn't remember any of her family or friends, but she wouldn't remember Daryl either.


	10. Embrace After Absence

**A/N: Again, contains description of injuries and blood, innuendo and swearing. Tread lightly.**

The truck sped forward on a road that continued to wind from left to right as the night crawled upon them. The headlights of the truck lit up the empty, eerie strip of road.

Everyone, even the dogs in the backseat, had been quiet on the inside of the truck. Nobody dared to make a sound, as if a mere notion of a sound would make the tender situation explode.

Joe Barlow wasn't Daryl Dixon's favorite person, not by a long shot, and yet, he had been forced to bring him along with this wild goose chase.

The dogs had complained about the crowded quarters at first but settled down after a while. Their mistress seemed to be their one priority, and as she'd began relaxing once more the dogs had calmed down as well.

As Daryl kept increasing the speed little by little, she had fallen asleep on the backseat.

Her head was tilted against the shoulder blade of still alert Atka. Daryl continued to keep an eye on her through the rear view mirror every five minutes, despite he knew well enough that she was relatively safe. For now. He was almost certain that the dog, Atka, would keep a watchful eye until Beth was safe, and there he could relate with the animal.

"She's fine, Dixon."

Joe had kept quiet just like everyone else in the car, but now, he was the first to break it by speaking out loud.

Daryl glanced at him from the corners of his eyes. The grey-haired man continued to look out of the window, making a point not to look at Daryl while he had spoken, but Daryl could still see the smug expression on his face. Being slightly paranoid when it came to Joe Barlow, Daryl was certain he was probably eyeing at him via the reflection in the window, watching his reactions and spying on Beth through the side mirrors.

"Shut up," Daryl grumbled, making the older man chuckle.

Daryl ignored Barlow by giving another glance at the rear-view mirror.

Nanuk, the youngest of her dogs, snuggled at her feet, his face resting against her leg. He opened his eyes lazily, his ears perking up, as he turned to look at Daryl as if he had sensed him looking at Beth. Sixth sense of the dogs was eerier than the empty road they were travelling now, but Daryl was thankful that the dogs were there. At least, they would bite Joe's head off if he tried to harm her in any way.

Daryl had not felt comfortable to put Joe in the backseat with Beth's dogs, but he was even more uncomfortable now as he was sitting next to him.

He wasn't over, even after five years, the way Joe had acted around him in the prison, while they had still shared the same halls of the large correctional facility.

"So, they let you out just like that, huh?" Daryl asked, not quick enough to bite his tongue and stop himself from asking the one thing he probably shouldn't have been asking. Not that he cared about what and how Joe had done it, but it gave away the fact that he had thought about it, and he had thought about him.

His curiosity beat him by a breath, and he glanced at Joe for a second before returning his gaze to stare at the road defiantly.

"Yeah, that might have happened," Joe nodded, grinning a little, "Or not."

Daryl scoffed, well knowing that it had not been a coincidence that Joe had been released from ADX just a moment after he had contacted Daryl on the inside.

"I made a deal," Joe said, shrugging nonchalantly. He didn't have to explain a thing to Daryl, and he knew it. It got quiet in the car again for a moment, until Joe continued.

"Actually, I think there might have been two deals. Got a pretty sum over those," it wasn't any more explanatory than Joe had been thus far. Daryl raised an eyebrow at him, frowning a bit.

He had forgotten how slippery smooth Joe Barlow could be if he wanted, and how inexplicably slimy he could make people around him feel. Gritting his teeth together he clutched the steering wheel, keeping his eyes on the empty and darkened road ahead.

The strange, almost sixth sense kind of feeling kept nagging at him in the back of his mind. Something about the whole situation was wrong, and he couldn't help but think that it was that Joe was about to double cross them. It was just a thought after all and it wouldn't explain the fact that Joe had shot and killed his entire crew just hours ago in order to get both Beth and Daryl out of Bethel alive.

But human lives hardly meant a thing to Joe. As far as Daryl knew he had killed several innocent bystanders over the course of his career. Truthfully, Daryl couldn't say he hadn't done the same thing over the years. Maybe Joe had just offed any competition and not wanting to share the reward money.

Glaring at the grey-haired man from the corner of his eyes, Daryl shifted in his seat awkwardly. It made him quickly wince in pain, realizing immediately that his unnerving feeling wasn't just about Joe. The cuts on his stomach were now getting more painful by the second.

He touched nonchalantly his abdomen, feeling the heat rising through the bandages. Infection and fever, both he could deal with, he had dealt with them before, but if this had escalated into sepsis, it was only a matter of moments he'd lose his consciousness and slip into a coma.

He had been moving along on pure adrenaline rush for the past hours, and now, as his body was slowly but surely getting relaxed in the vehicle and getting rid of all the excessive adrenaline, despite them still being on the lam, the pain was returning.

He almost felt like the pain was coming back with double the ferocity it had been after the attack. It wasn't good at all. Stubbornly he gritted his teeth together, and clutched the steering wheel keeping his eyes on the empty and dark road.

"Who the fuck hired you?" Daryl hissed out a question, mostly trying to distract himself from the sharp ache.

"What, and spoil the fun?" Joe chuckled, turning to look at him for the first time, shifting the shotgun he was holding between his legs.

And there it was again, a twinkle that made Daryl uncomfortable.

"Boy, you're getting skittish over nothing," Joe chortled, and waved his hand vaguely, "I have a boyfriend."

He then paused for a second, although it felt longer, and then Daryl saw him swivel himself around as much as his seat belt allowed, looking back at the direction they had come and muttered, "Oh, right… I had a boyfriend."

"What?" Daryl choked out and turned to look at Joe for a moment too long, before he felt the car drifting into the opposite lane. He straightened the car back onto the correct lane, while glaring at Joe from the corners of his eyes.

"Jesus Christ, Dixon, relax," Joe scoffed, "Lighten up. You're way too tense. Ain't got no boyfriend. Or a girlfriend, for that matter."

"Ain't got no reason to trust you," Daryl hissed, snapping his mouth shut, stifling a groan that nearly escaped from his mouth. The twinge in his abdomen felt almost as if someone was turning a knife in his gut.

Daryl scoffed, and shook his head. He knew he wasn't going to get Joe admit who had hired him, but he needed enough distraction from the pain. Arguing with Joe seemed to be doing the trick, making his blood pressure rise and his adrenaline pumping. Better that way than chasing wisps in the woods.

"Spit it out," Daryl growled.

"Said no one ever," Joe snickered, and grinned. But then, coughed a little, as he saw how Daryl was slowly losing his patience.

"Fine, lighten up," he replied, and then continued, "Just drive where ever you were gonna go. I'm just gonna hang with ya there and then, we'll see. I might just have to keep you company until you're safely back with whomever hired me."

"Who hired ya?!" Daryl shouted suddenly, losing his temper. He made a move to his right, grabbing Joe by his collar.

His foot pressed on the gas, and they both felt the truck lurch forward.

The otherwise empty road had been quiet but now the roar of the amped up truck bounced from the trees and disturbed the silence. Daryl could see leaves and other debris being swooped up in the air by the draft of the truck, and small pebbles cracking onto the windshield, but he didn't ease off from the pedal. His foot pressed down as he still clutched the collar of Joe's.

Up until that moment, he'd kept the speed relatively secure, just on the verge of the speed limits, not interested in attracting any unwanted attention, or take any risks.

The pedal beneath the sole of his shoe was the perfect leverage, when the twinge of pain in his gut and Joe's irritating smug attitude grew too much to bear.

The pain and anger blinded him for a second.

His inner ear couldn't keep up with the suddenness of losing eyesight even for a second, and he wasn't sure if the car was still going forward on the right lane.

Judging by the way Joe reacted a second later the car was all but out of the road by then.

"DIXON!" he heard Joe shout. The old bounty hunter made a move to grab the wheel of the truck, but Daryl, still wanting to bite his head off, made it difficult. His shout, though, startled awake Beth.

She woke up amidst a group of confused and quickly anxious dogs.

"Daryl?" she called from the back seat, voice still drowsy from sleep.

As the vehicle tilted, spun around slowly, the dogs began to howl.

"Fuck," Daryl managed to groan out loud, his extremities feeling numb, just as everything around him turned blurry.

He couldn't reach the brake, no matter what. He swore out loud and glanced over his shoulder watching the blonde woman looking surprised, panicked and slightly confused. His instincts fought with one another, as he reached for the handbrake and yanked it. With the speed, and the weight of the car, it was totally useless. Physics dictated that the car continued after he yanked the brake. He heard something screech against the chassis of the vehicle, and hoped it was the guard railing of the road. It might be enough to stop the truck.

"Hold on!" he shouted out loud, turning the wheel and bracing himself for the impact. He didn't have enough time to see if she was strapped in with her seat belt, or she actually was holding on, because he was too busy hoping that the dogs wouldn't take off like furry cannonballs, and splatter all over the windshield. The centrifugal force of the inside of the car forced Joe against the car door. Despite the truck turning around slowly for the speed it had travelled at first, the force of it was still immense. The truck could have been spinning around uncontrollably and Joe didn't want to think what might have happened if it had hit something that might have launched the truck in the air.

"Daryl!" she shrieked once as the car skidded on the asphalt, along the road, the rear end turning around steadily, and scraping against the metal of the guard rail. She whimpered out loud, the dogs falling on the back seat as they continued to lose their balance.

In the end it was a large tree that stopped the car.

The tree shook as the left front side of the car slammed against the trunk, needles and twigs falling onto the windshield that had cracked from the force of the impact like hales during a storm. The insides of the car fell silent, and only thing Joe could hear was the ragged breathing of his own and Beth. The next sound that invaded into the silent car was the whining of the dogs, and the engine groaning and creaking.

The car swayed and tilted once, and both Joe and Beth clutched onto anything they could. When the vehicle came to a permanent halt, Joe took a deep breath before he opened his eyes. Clearing his throat, he glanced around, noticing the truck had slammed against the tree sideways.

Relieved, he didn't feel any serious pain, he patted down his chest and to his arms and legs. A crick on his neck and some bruises were imminent but other than the he wasn't hurt. Looking over his shoulder the dogs were in a pile of fur on the floor of the back, making their ways up on the back seat. Beth seemed to be in order as well, but he wasn't sure if he should demand an answer from the woman or not. She was probably just as suspicious of him as Daryl was.

Daryl.

He turned to look at the boy behind the wheel and cursed out loud. He groaned, reached to open his seatbelt that squeezed him into his seat, like a vice, and then grunted as he tried to crawl upright, to reach Daryl.

Yanking open the seatbelt, Joe propped Daryl against the steering wheel, before he touched his neck, face and arms. Nothing seemed to be broken. Until he saw the blood.

There it was. The blood, trickling down the dashboard, onto the center console and floor.

"Fuck," Joe cursed out loud, which drew Beth's attention from her dogs. She had been inspecting them meticulously, trying to find if they had been injured in any way. Luckily, the dogs had just slid on the floor and if they had been bumbled about, they would be sore, bruised even, but nothing was broken. She would have to find a clinic to have them checked as soon as possible.

When she heard Joe swear out loud, she turned her head to look at his direction.

"Oh my God," her voice came out from behind, feeble from shock, "Daryl!"

She fought a moment to get her seatbelt open, before it gave in, and she crawled her way between the two front seats.

"His neck," she said, as she began searching something, she could use to stop the bleeding.

"Not broken," Joe grumbled, "He was clutching his gut before."

"He was injured before," she answered in a hurry, extending her arm and sliding her palm under the shirt she had given to him earlier. His bandages were hot and wet. Wet from blood that continued to trickle down his stomach and hot from the excessive heat his skin was radiating, due to an inflammation.

"Injured how?" Joe asked and cursed internally. He was supposed to keep the boy alive and not get him killed in a car accident by agitating him to the brink of self-destruction.

"I don't know, he didn't really tell me. He looked like he was beaten and left for dead," Rose said, shaking her head, "I think he was stabbed too."

She remained silent for a moment, bringing her hand onto his forehead, and then touching Daryl's cheek. Then, she pried open one of his eyes, her lips pressing into a tight line, "The wound is inflamed, he needs to go to a doctor. Now."

Her voice didn't come out as a suggestion, it came out as an order.

Joe glanced at the petite blonde once and nodded. He grumbled internally, though, thinking it was best if he didn't scare the girl. He wasn't sure if they could find a doctor, or if they could get Daryl to a doctor for that matter.

"There ain't no way he wants to go to a doctor, girl," Joe replied, with a smug grin, voicing his thoughts out loud.

"I wasn't asking him, or you!" she hissed at him, pressing the bleeding wound and eliciting a hiss from Daryl.

"Look, girly," Joe started, "Don't know if ya know this, but Daryl here is a wanted criminal. He ain't gonna wanna see no doctors in any emergency rooms, because they are legally bound to call in any gun-shot wounds!"

She stilled her movements, her lips pressing into a tight line as she tried to process the new information. Joe watched intently at her expression change from shock to decisive.

Rose frowned and jutted her chin forward defiantly. Somehow, she had already known something wasn't all peaches and cream about Daryl, but she also knew he wasn't a bad man. Looking up at Joe with anger in her eyes she realized he had expected her to bolt or turn on Daryl. She gave him a glare, a rude one, before she squinted her eyes.

"Vets," she hissed then, "Vet clinics use the same medication for animals! We could find one."

"Pfft."

"Gimme your phone!" she said and grabbed Joe's cell phone from his mitts without waiting for him to hand it over.

She began searching for a suitable and close enough clinic, while Joe began grumbling about the ludicrousness of the plan. Nevertheless, he opened the door, and made his way out with a great deal of difficulty as the terrain underneath them was askew and full of shrubs and branches.

"Found one," she informed.

"Fantastic," Joe muttered under his breath.

He wasn't hired to babysit a woman with an amnesia, and he certainly wasn't hired to pretend to be a paramedic for a guy he was hired to get out of town alive, although it seemed to be harder than he had expected. He was paid half up front to do that, and as greedy as he was, he wanted to get the other half on delivery, bringing Daryl and possibly the girl back alive. The money was too good to back out of the deal he'd made.

He groaned, and rolled his eyes at himself, before he began to figure out the best way to get the dogs, Daryl and the girl out of the truck without much hassle.

Daryl come to abruptly just as Rose began cleaning and bandaging his wounds once more. She had been very gentle while cleaning Daryl's battered face, but now, even as she tried to be gentle with the abdomen, barely touching him, his skin was burning hot and the knife wound on his abdomen was painful and tender.

"FUCK!" he shouted out loud and grabbing roughly Rose by her wrist with his bloody, sticky hand and squeezed tightly. She got startled immediately, but it lasted only for a second, and again she stared back at him with almost no fear in her eyes. It confused Daryl the hell out of his mind and he slumped back in his seat and glared at the blonde woman under his shaggy hair.

"Daryl," she said softly, almost scolding him for grabbing her. And or a second, on that moment he heard his name being spoken out loud by her voice, he was almost certain she recognized him.

"Sorry," he growled, letting go of her wrist.

The blood that had smeared his fingers earlier were sticky making it feel as if he was pulling his hand from her wrist like an orange peel and they left a crude print of his palm on her pale skin.

"Geez, get a room you two," Joe said, rolling his eyes. Both, Daryl and Rose, snapped their heads at his direction, one looking at him with disdain, the other with surprise.

He sat on a rock nearby surrounded by four dogs. He was absentmindedly scratching one's ears, but Daryl couldn't remember which one it was. It would have been comical to Daryl, if he wasn't in pain. Though, he had expected Joe to snicker something about him fainting in the car, but instead he scoffed.

"Can ya get up, Dixon? We got a long way a way to walk," Joe continued, ignoring the rude glare of Daryl's.

"He shouldn't be moving," Rose began, and looked up at Joe, from where she was kneeled on the ground next to Daryl. He wanted to rebuff that statement.

Joe's mouth pressed into a tight line, and Daryl could see he agreed with Beth, but in the end the reputation he had gained as a hardcore hitman didn't allow him to play it soft.

"How the fuck you gonna get his ass at the vet clinic if he ain't walking there? The goddamn truck is wrapped around this tree!" Joe snapped, and rolled his eyes at the blonde woman.

"Don't yell at her," Daryl hissed, clutching his abdomen. He sat there, looking up at Joe, trying to concentrate on breathing without the screaming pain in every single nerve ending he had, but soon realizing it was impossible.

Joe rolled his eyes at that, and snorted, "Like I said, how the fuck you gonna get your ass at the vet clinic then?"

Daryl glowered at Joe but said nothing. Instead, he clambered up rather wobbly, and took some support from the destructed vehicle. He didn't want to say it out loud, but the world seemed to have been trapped onto a carousel and it was spinning out of control.

He'd been severely injured many times during his active service, and he'd even been tortured when he'd been taken a POW with his - -

He bit the inside of his cheek. The answer hit him in the face right then and there.

"I can walk," he grumbled defiantly as if to challenge Joe to argue back. The grey-haired man said nothing in response, but as he turned around, he rolled his eyes and grumbled something about how he had never realized how ridiculous male bullshit sounded like. It seemed to startle him next and he kept his mouth shut for a quite a while.

It took them longer than they had thought to walk from the crash site to the vet clinic Rose had found online using Joe's phone. All four of Rose's dogs had bounced and trotted around them, and explored the surroundings, quite excited about the new scents and new areas.

The clinic was empty and dark on the inside, which wasn't a huge surprise considering it was well after midnight. Although Rose had expected to find at least some poor trainee inside on call all night, she was minimally relieved that there wasn't anyone to ask silly questions. The only sign that the place wasn't abandoned was the small porch light lit next to the front door.

Having the place all to themselves was cold comfort. Thinking about the injuries Daryl had they could have used professional help. Veterinarian, or even a trainee, would have been a better choice rather than Rose and Joe.

Animals have feelings, just like humans. Sometimes it's harder to tend the animals.

The words echoed in Rose's mind like the flutter of a butterfly's wings. The sound of the man speaking was once again her father's and she couldn't help but think how she had adapted so quickly to the fact that her father had been a veterinarian, instead of some small-town hunter with alcohol issues.

Frowning she shrugged her shoulders to brush off the thought that she had been lied to so many times over the course of few years that she wasn't sure if anything she had been told by Daryl was real.

"Check the door," Joe said, startling Rose out of her thoughts.

She let her arm go free from underneath Daryl's arm and made sure he was still standing properly before she hurried at the door. The archer was still dazed after the crash and bleeding from his abdomen, but he had managed to hobble the ten-mile walk, occasionally supported by Rose and Joe.

"Why… are you… helping?" Daryl growled for the hundredth time over the past hours. He stumbled forward, but Joe grabbed his arm, offering support quickly.

"Bring him here!" Rose called out, preventing Joe to reply to Daryl immediately. She stood at the front steps of the small country clinic and pointed at the door, which was quite possibly and undoubtedly locked. Dogs barking somewhere behind the facility startled her for a second and frantically searched around her to see where her dogs had trotted off to.

She was slightly phased when she saw all four of her dogs sitting next to her waiting for her to open the door as if they were going home. There were some farm animals moving around in the barn near the small building and the paddock surrounding it. Otherwise the area around the clinic and the yard was dark and quiet.

She looked once more at her dogs, seeing their ears perking up, heads tilted, as they listened to the sounds they had not heard before. Once or twice she could hear one of them gruff out loud as if to reply to the barking sounds but then they fell silent again.

"Daryl," Joe growled back, sweat beading on his forehead, as he struggled to support Daryl and stumble forward in the dim yard, "This is goin' to be one borin' ride if ya keep askin' that same damn question over and over."

Daryl huffed a reply, but Joe couldn't hear if he said anything meaningful.

"The door is locked," Rose announced looking disappointed, panic crawling into her eyes slowly.

"Here," Joe breathed, and guided Daryl on the steps of the vet clinic, "Sit here for a second, will ya."

Barlow reached into his back pocket and pulled out a slender case. Opening the zipper around the edges of it he handed the case over to Rose and kneeled with a groan and crack of his joints and began picking the lock.

"Are you picking the lock?" Rose whispered, glaring at Joe over his shoulders.

"How the fuck are we gonna get in if I don't do this, then?" Joe snapped, beginning to feel frustrated, "The vets are not exactly doctors of medicine, but don't you think for a second they aren't gonna notify the cops about Daryl's injuries!"

"Don't fucking snap at her, asshole, that's twice you've done it," Daryl growled, from where he was doubling over and gritting his teeth together so hard Rose feared he might crack a tooth.

"Got it," Joe said, ignoring Daryl's outburst. The front door of the clinic slid open slowly, revealing a dark corridor behind it.

Both Rose and Joe grabbed Daryl by his arms and helped him up, before Joe kicked the door in and they entered the dark building.

She helped Daryl on the first chair she spotted, and he crashed onto it heavily. The blood soaked again his shirt and she had an instant flashback to the rainy, dark road where she had found him, just mere days ago. So much had happened in that relatively short period of time that she wasn't sure if she was just having a very vivid nightmare.

"I need to clean this properly this time," she said, and began lifting Daryl's shirt up.

"Do whatever makes you feel better about it," he growled, his knuckles white as he clutched the armrests of the seat.

"You don't have to be rude," she said back.

He huffed as a reply but said nothing else. Battlefield medicine and Daryl were old friends, despite this didn't exactly qualify as a battlefield.

She didn't look up at him, she concentrated on peeling the gauze away. Daryl growled, the sound rising from deep of his throat, and fingers curling into tight fists, as she slowly pulled the gauze off the wound. His skin felt hot like embers to an outstretched palm over a fire place.

After peeling the final strip of blood-soaked gauze from his skin, she looked up at Daryl. He didn't have to look at the wounds on his abdomen to know that the look she gave him meant she was about to start cleaning them and she wouldn't take a 'no' for an answer.

She stood from the seat she had sat down absentmindedly and began rummaging through the cabinets and drawers she could open. When she came to a locked cabinet, she frowned and turned around, her gaze landing on Joe.

"Can you open this?" she asked pointedly.

Joe raised his eyebrows equally pointedly and gave another look at Daryl.

"This little bird is sure somethin' different, ain't she?" he asked from him, not expecting a reply, before he sauntered over to the cabinet.

"This little bird saw you pick the lock of the front door, and is sure you can do it again," Rose replied slightly annoyed, and walked briskly back to Daryl's seat. It made Daryl chortle out loud, followed by a loud groan as his abdominal muscles contracted and the pain shot through his nerve endings. She pushed him back in his seat, as she pulled a chair with wheels to herself absentmindedly and sat down.

She began cleaning up the wound on Daryl's abdomen, her entire focus now on the task, and ignoring both men, as well as the dogs.

"We gotta move soon," Joe grumbled, peeking through the blinders, looking worriedly at the dark yard of the vet clinic.

"Not until I'm done with this," Rose replied defiantly and continued to swab the largest wound with a large Q-tip and a cotton pad.

Joe frowned and gave a meaningful look at Daryl, who didn't bother to react to that in any way. He was clutching the armrests of the chair and trying his best not to fidget too much. She would have to clean his wounds just well enough for him to get her out of the town.

He turned to look at the four dogs sitting and laying down on the floor near them.

"Thinking what I'm thinking?" Joe asked then and made Daryl shudder.

"What?" Rose asked, lifting her head up.

"Nothin'," Daryl replied quickly and tried to signal to Joe to keep his trap shut.

"Aww," Joe said pretending to actually have emotional range of a human being, "Dixon ain't want to get your feelings hurt. I can do it for him. The dogs ain't travelling too well with us. They're like ice cream on a hot day."

"You want to leave my dogs at some vet's office? After we broke in?" Rose asked back sharply, looking at Daryl first, before turning to look at Joe.

"Nah, didn't mean…" Daryl began.

"You do realize that they are all security chipped and registered to me?" she asked coolly, jabbing the cotton pad slightly rougher at Daryl's abdomen. He flinched and shifted in the seat.

"Jesusfuck, you're so pussy whipped," Joe grumbled in a protest that he knew was futile and then, proceeded to head to the front door, "I'mma gonna go find us a new car. Stay put. Where ya wanna head to?" Joe asked from Daryl, "I should know if the car need be in better shape or not."

"San Francisco."

The yard of a small wooden cabin was filled with cars of the local Sheriff's Department. An ambulance and a pair of paramedics loitered at the sidelines, which only indicated that there was no one in a dire need of medical assistance.

Negan parked his car at the end of the muddy cabin road and chewed his bottom lip aggressively. He was growing his beard out again, and his skin was itchy making him easily irritable. He scratched his chin, observing the commotion around the cabin.

"Small towns," he huffed to himself, rolling his eyes. It would have been preferable if he had reached the cabin before the law enforcement managed to come and poke and dissect everything, but he had to make do with what he had now.

His eyes landed on a white and blue Jeep with 'Medical Examiner' written to its side, as he slowly pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. Continuing to keep a close eye on the vehicle in question, he flipped open the shell of the phone and pressed number one to speed dial to his boss.

"I'm here," he grumbled as he received and answer.

"And?" the receiver of the call, Negan's boss, Governor Philip Blake asked expectantly. Negan huffed through his nose, as he frowned a little at the question.

"Nothing. They left a dead body here. Looks like one of the men you hired, sir," Negan answered, trying to keep his voice as smooth as he physically could. As much as he thought Governor Blake to be slightly moronic man, with delusions of grandeur, he had too much reach and power to be upset suddenly.

"Interesting. Daryl Dixon going rogue against all the odds," Blake replied, with a chuckle, and Negan could hear him shake his head.

"It would appear so," he answered. While still listening to Blake, he reached into his glove compartment and pulled out a folded map.

"You know what to do, Negan," Blake said, his voice sounding rather disappointed, and before he could reply, Blake had ended the call.

"Yes, Sir," he said to himself, closing the shell, and tossing it onto the seat next to him. He grinned as he looked at the Sheriff and his deputies scamper around the yard, looking at the ground and finding bullets and casings here and there, and trying to act like they had any idea how to process a crime scene like this.

A second later, Negan didn't even flinch when one of the skinny, dark brown polyester wearing deputies suddenly knocked onto his car window. Instead, he plastered a shocked expression on his face and pressed a button to open the window.

"Sir, you can't be here," the young deputy said, trying to sound like he had the authority in the situation.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Deputy," Negan said, still grinning, "I seem to have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Trying to find the town of Bethel. What… What is going on here?"

"Sir, you don't have to worry about this. We are taking care of it. As for the instructions to the town… You should double back, turn right from where you turned here, and continue about 10 miles that road, until you turn left into the town," the deputy said, his tone of voice changing from mildly authoritarian to a friendly and helpful one.

It almost always intrigued Negan how people could be so innocent and trusting even when there was a moment where they should have been suspicious. And it almost always worked on his behalf because he had learned to manipulate these people as he pleased.

He thanked the lanky deputy and restarted his engine, making a swift U turn and heading back to the paved road. Half way up the hill, he dialed his phone again.

"Simon."

The sun was already rising from the horizon, when Daryl, supported heavily by Beth, rapped his knuckles against the door of the RV that had been parked at the beach. A Frankenstein of mobile homes, the silvery and white vehicle looked like it was a mutated offspring of an old Airstream and a luxury motorhome.

He was still achy, mostly because Beth hadn't been confident enough to pick up an antibiotic from the veterinarian's office that might have broken the infection down. Over the last ten-hour drive, he'd felt a jab of pain in his gut half a dozen times and seen stars each time, and he'd sought support from Beth and, reluctantly, Joe.

Joe Barlow, one time enemy and currently a tentative accomplice, stood behind the two holding one of Daryl's weapons, an assault rifle, in his hands, looking suspicious and awed at the same time. The expression on his face melted from suspicious to surprised followed quickly by intrigue the longer he continued to eye the surroundings of the beach side trailer park.

It wasn't one of those trailer parks one might automatically think when talking about them. It was rather a strange combination of a retreat and camping ground, smacked in the middle of a yacht club, a national park, and a large collection of various restaurants, stores and boutiques. It was almost as if it was a community of its own.

"Your friend lives here? What is he, a rich slacker?" Joe asked, swiveling to look at Daryl.

"Hmph," Daryl gruntled, not certain if Joe was being condescending or if he was failing at humor in life.

The dogs panted in the humid and already rising temperature of California, and gathered around Beth and Daryl like a protective, furry shield. Daryl watched Beth reach her one free hand to touch each dog and scratch behind their ears briefly.

The beach was empty of people at 5 am. As the sun continued to creep up and light the area, they could see birds beginning their flight and seagulls cawing as they called out to the morning sun.

"Fucking roosters of the sea," Joe huffed, and made Rose chuckle out loud, "Caw-fucking-caw, the sun is up!" Joe continued and flapped his arms a little. Daryl gave a disapproving look at the older man and rolled his eyes at the blonde woman finding Joe funny at that moment.

Desna and Atka both huffed a half a bark out and Beth brought her finger to her lips to shush the dogs to be quiet. Nanuk and Qilaq were too distracted by the scents on the fake grass and pillows to be bothered by anything else drawing their attention.

The injured man knocked again, this time louder. He shifted, taking a step back from the door, expecting an answer quickly but again, the RV remained quiet, lifeless.

"Fuck," he groaned, looking down frustrated. His eyes landed on the large green turf, mimicking grass under their feet, and a sea of pillows littered around the fireplace that was smacked in the middle of the fake grass. The still smoldering embers in the fireplace radiated heat, and he could feel it on his face. His eyebrows arched, and for a fleeting second, he thought they might have walked to a wrong RV.

Joe sauntered over to the green turf, kicked it few times with the dirty, dusty boots of his and snorted in a disapproving manner.

"Goddamn hippies," he then voiced out loud his opinion, and eyed at the outside decorations critically. It was Daryl's turn to chortle out loud, and glance at the man over his shoulder with a grin.

"Shut up," Joe growled back, realizing how he sounded like a grumpy old man, guarding the 'Good Ol' Days'.

"Well, ya ain't too wrong about that," Daryl wheezed, as he lifted his hand and banged his fist against the narrow door few times. This time, it took few seconds, until they received an answer for the knock.

The door opened slowly and first, Rose saw a man rubbing sleep off his eyes.

"Fucking Christ, who the hell is it?" he complained, trying to focus his eyes on the people disrupting his sleep.

He wore black, baggy pants, hanging low on his narrow hips. His hair was dirty blonde, hastily wrapped into a messy bun atop his head. There were strands of hair sticking out and making it look little bit exploded. His beard, despite also being messy, was neatly trimmed.

Rose frowned a little as she looked up at the man. He had managed to pry his eyes open, and as his gaze landed on Daryl, surprise and disbelief alternated on his face for few measly seconds before he broke into a grin that lit up his entire being.

"Daryl Dixon, as I live and breathe," he said, smirking like the proverbial cat.

Atka started it first and was joined in Desna and Qilaq. The three dogs began to bark, and Rose startled, practically jumping out of her skin and speedily spun around to command her dogs to keep quiet.

"Quiet!" she snapped, receiving less than imminent response from the dogs, and she had to give the order twice more. Finally getting the dogs back under her control, she turned to look at the men in front of her, her cheeks feeling hot.

"Paul," Daryl greeted then grumpily, gritting his teeth together, and hissing out as he shifted and the pain in his abdomen jabbing him again. The sound of air escaping through the clenched teeth of Daryl's wiped the smirk of the man's face and he hopped down from the RV's steps.

Worry laced his voice when he moved on to help Beth, to get Daryl seated on the steps of the RV's doorway, "What's wrong, love?"

"Nothin'," Daryl replied, holding his breath as he sat down and letting it then wheeze out.

"He was injured," Beth said, looking at him like she was about to cry. It was possible, though. She had been awfully quiet after they had left the vet clinic and huddled in the back seat with the dogs.

"Injured how?" Paul asked, and gave a quick once over to the grump seated on the steps.

"It's nothin'," Daryl replied, holding his abdomen, as if to trick his brain into believing everything was fine. His attention was drawn by Joe, sauntering closer and eyeing at the half naked man with growing interest.

"Injured how, Daryl?" Paul asked again, this time more demandingly.

Daryl grumbled, and waved his arm as if to dismiss the judgment in Paul's voice.

"Paul, this is Be-, uh, this is Rose, and that's Joe," he said instead, trying to change the subject. He didn't need a lecture from the long-haired man.

"Rose, Joe, this asshole is Jesus," he finished introductions.

"'m sorry? Jesus?" Joe interrupted and grinned, his eyes still on Paul's, Jesus', frame.

Paul straightened up, turning his head to look directly at Rose and Joe. He grinned, and shrugged his shoulders, "Paul Rovia, but my friends call me Jesus," he then said, extending his hand to Rose. She took it shaking it slightly confounded and blushed when he leaned down, lifting her hand up at the same time, and kissed the back of her hand.

"R-Rose Howe," she stuttered her reply, and then pulling swiftly her hand back.

Daryl chortled, "What a Prince Charming."

"You were AWOL from the course where they taught us to be gentlemanly to the women," Jesus said and winked at Rose.

"Jesus."

"That's mah name!"

Joe burst into laughter and Paul leaned over Daryl, grabbing him by his arm and helping him stand up, "C'mon, you accident prone bastard. Get in the RV and you can tell me all about - - this," he said, gesturing vaguely towards Daryl's abdomen, "You're in luck, Grouchy. I have an old friend visiting."

"Jesus?" the voice coming from the door way of the trailer shut all four up and they turned to look.


	11. Through these fields of destruction

**A/N: In this chapter there is a scene where Daryl's wound is treated, using what they have in the RV. Considering, the two men helping him out are both former soldiers, their method is pretty graphic. Please, tread with caution, if you are squeamish about blood and treating of wounds. It was necessary though.**

Annette Greene stood next to her husband Hershel Greene, and waited.

She wore a light blue dress, with a white cardigan and her hair was brought up into a simple bun atop of her head. Despite twiddling with the pearl necklace in her fingers, she remained otherwise motionless. The handkerchief she had squeezed in her palm felt moist to touch. She had cried since the phone call, and she was certain she had cried enough to last a lifetime.

The only source of light came through the window. Sunlight caught the dust particles in the air, and made the room look smoky. The pale pink roses and pale blue forget-me-nots on the wallpaper looked old and faded. The wallpaper had been there for a long time, and Annette had thought about having it renovated, changed.

It wasn't a rational thought pattern, not by a long shot, but Annette had been slightly irrational over the past five years, ever since her daughter Beth had been taken away from her. She wanted to uphold the memories of her youngest and reminiscing in Beth's old bedroom was the way the couple had been coping with it.

"We ought to pray," Hershel whispered, his voice trembling. His hands fidgeted, not knowing where to put them, and then reached for his tattered and worn leather covered bible.

His suit, once dark blue, was now growing weary and dull of color. The tucked the sleeves down, straightened his buttoned jacket once or twice, adjusting the cuffs of his white shirt.

"She is safe, Hershel," Annette said absently, "I would know, darlin', I would know if my baby was… dead."

Hershel drew air in a stuttering manner, adjusting his stance. He shook his head quickly and coughed to recompose himself.

Hershel had received the dreadful phone call barely at dawn. He had feared having one since this ordeal had started. Drowsy from sleep, it had been nigh impossible for him to comprehend that the events had escalated this far.

The US Marshals had been notified of the gunfight at the cabin that Beth, or Rose Howe as she was called now, had been living. Now, she had disappeared, and a body of a known bounty hunter had been left behind.

"I should have stayed," Hershel said finally, his head bowed down.

Annette Greene had grown in a loving and God-fearing home with a mother and a father, who had done everything for their children. They had taught her the importance of forgiveness and apology. She had learned to live by those principles. Even after her first husband had died and left her with a small child, she had never blamed God or anyone else for her hardship.

She had met Hershel in a support group years later. Even learning about Hershel's past, his alcoholism and how he had nearly turned away from God when Josephine had died, she had not abandoned him. She wasn't one to lose her temper, because she knew how imperfect people were.

But right now, as Hershel said those words to her in Beth's old room, she wanted to look up to her husband and lash out at him.

Beth was their evening star, their little miracle. She was protected, loved and cared for all in their family. And now, she was lost to them.

She wanted to tell him that he should have stayed with her! She wanted to blame someone if not Hershel. She was ready to blame every person on the planet if it that was to bring Beth back, but despite being irrational with her thoughts right now, she knew she couldn't blame her husband for not staying with Beth.

In the beginning, everything had seemed absurd. The US Marshals and the FBI explaining what had happened and how they wanted to enter Beth into the witness protection program.

Her chest ached, as she felt her heart twist in knots. This had lasted on for years and Annette was beginning to feel hopeless.

Everything had happened so quickly. At first the Marshals had given them both the opportunity to stay with Beth, but at the last minute rescinded that to include only one of them. Finally, having Hershel leave with Beth had left Annette devastated and their family broken.

Sometime into the deal, Hershel was pulled out of the program, and they were told that to go against that would have placed both Beth and Hershel in danger.

But now, Beth was in danger.

"Let's pray, darlin'," she whispered to Hershel and took a hold of his arm.

"Daddy?" Maggie Rhee called out when she heard footsteps echoing in the hallway. She was ready to stand up, expecting at least somewhat good news.

"It's me, babe," Glenn, her husband, called out stepping into the living room carrying a piece of paper. Maggie's face dropped, her whole being slumped back into the uncomfortable couch and she brushed her hair behind her ear as she returned to look at the faded fabric of the carpet.

He sighed, feeling instantly guilty that his wife had to be disappointed like that. Apart from his own mother, his wife was probably the strongest woman he knew. Sometimes, very rarely, he had seen a glimpse of fright in her eyes. Like when their son Hershel Jr had first time fallen ill with a fever, or when their daughter Josie had fallen into the pond of the farm and nearly drowned.

Hershel Jr got better, and Josie didn't learn a thing about not going near the pond.

He walked slowly to the couch and sat next to Maggie. Letting his eyes roam around the small living room, he saw the picture frames on the mantle. Family meant a lot to the Greenes, there were photographs of all the members born or married to the family. When his eyes landed on the one in the middle he froze; Beth Greene.

The youngest of the Greene children had been gone for a long time now; five years if his memory served him well enough. She hadn't seen Josie; she had barely had time to meet Hershel Jr.

"They think she's dead, Glenn," Maggie whispered suddenly, "For real this time."

Glenn looked over at Maggie and shook his head gently, opening his mouth to reply to her statement.

"She was supposed to be safe there. I haven't talked to my baby sister in years because we were told there might be a chance our phones were tapped by someone wanting to harm her, and us!"

"Maggie, come on," Glenn began, trying to take her hand into his but Maggie coiled away.

Instead of letting Glenn calm her down or console her in any way, she went on a long tirade about the US Marshals, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the justice system of the country. As Glenn was listening to her, he eyed at the window only jokingly expecting big black helicopters arriving to take her away.

"Last summer, when Josie went to the pond and decided to jump in…. She reminded me so much of Beth when she was younger!"

Glenn had to agree; he nodded at Maggie's statement.

"That little brat…," she sighed, "She threw my birth control pills in that pond when we were kids. She was barely ten years old, but she got so upset when she found those pills. She was this tiny hurricane that just grabbed the package and marched over to the pond and…. just…. splash! Threw them in!"

Glenn had heard the story about a million times. He had to agree that despite that innocent and waiflike exterior Beth Greene was a headstrong woman.

"We fought so hard that day. She was small and wearing her new church dress mom had made for her; standing ankles deep in that pond. I made it to the pond just as she threw my pills there and I just lost it. I ran to her, and shoved her in and she fell into the muddy pond! She was screaming and I was shouting and that's when daddy came out to the pond."

Glenn listened to the rant, biting his tongue and stopping himself from speaking on top of Maggie.

"She just stood there. All muddied and wet in that brand-new church dress and batted her eyelashes at daddy when he asked what the hell was going on. She answered to him like a little angel she was, 'nothing, daddy, we were just playing', just like Josie did, remember?"

He nodded. Of course, he remembered. The girl was going to be the death of his, he was certain of that.

"I want my little sister back, and God forbid that bastard that did this to her is involved with this…. I will hang him from his dangly bits!" Maggie fumed and stood up. She walked back and forth once or twice, and Glenn decided to keep quiet.

Judging by the look on Maggie's face, he was better off remaining quiet. It got him thinking, though.

They had been married six years ago.

After the wedding they had moved to Chicago, to be near his family, and they had been quite happy with their life and the little house they had bought and renovated. Hershel Jr. was born about six months after the wedding and Josie when Hershel Jr had been almost two.

The Grady Memorial incident had turned the lives of the Greene family upside down, along with Glenn and Maggie's. They had been obligated to return to Georgia and help Annette to take care of the farm and the orchard.

"Daddy and mom have been upstairs for hours," Maggie continued to fume.

Glenn sighed, nodding his head, showing he was listening to her.

The first year during which Beth had been in a coma in the hospital and Daryl Dixon had been on trial had been vexing for all of them.

"They let Dixon out of prison," Maggie stopped in front of Glenn, "And this is what happened!"

"Mags," Glenn began, "They let Daryl out two years ago. Don't you think he would have tried to hurt Beth the moment he was released?"

"Are you taking his side?" Maggie's voice rose an octave, "I don't care what his motives are, or his plans! I bet my last dine that it took him this long to find out where the US Marshals were keeping my sister! I know it was him! They found him guilty!"

He looked at Maggie from the corners of his eyes and sighed. She had continued to blame Daryl Dixon for what had happened to Beth, and Glenn couldn't say for certain that he disagreed.

They hardly knew the man, and Beth had been different when she had been with him. Maybe even more headstrong and opinionated; not that it had been a bad thing, per say.

But Maggie; Maggie had been different all through the trial and every moment that her sister had been in coma.

Everything had changed once more and escalated severely after Beth and woken up from the coma. Her retrograde amnesia, and the on-going trial had made FBI to decide to place her into witness protection program. Hershel had moved with her and Annette had needed help with the farm and the orchard. Shawn and his wife Aly had moved back on the farm with their three children as well. Glenn had adopted a whole new role in the family as the foreman of the orange and apple orchards of the Greene Farm.

"Well?" she demanded a reply, but Glenn couldn't give her one. He didn't know the answer.

Footsteps descending the stairs caught Maggie and his attention, and they looked at Hershel and Annette's saddened faces. Maggie crossed her arms to her chest and Glenn stood up in a hurry. They watched intently at the older couple and waited for the news.

"Maggie," Annette said, smiling feebly, "Glenn," she added and touched Glenn's shoulder.

"So…. what happened? What's going on?" Maggie asked from Hershel.

"The officers are investigating the cabin. She is still missing," Annette replied, when Hershel remained quiet and rested his palms against the back of the comforter.

"Missing?" Maggie asked, sticking to that one word hard.

"Yes," Annette nodded her head, and glanced away from Maggie and Glenn. Swiftly and discretely she wiped her eyes with a tissue she had held in her hands and turned to look back at Maggie.

"I don't have any answers for you about your sister, sweetheart," she sighed then, "All I can hope and pray that the police and the Marshals will find her quickly."

"The Marshals are the reason she is not at home with her family!" Maggie raised her voice, "The Marshals, the FBI and Daryl Dixon!" she screamed, before she stomped out of the living room. Glenn grunted awkwardly and for a second he looked like he didn't know what he should do until he excused himself vaguely and ran after his wife.

"Maggie, wait!"

This was what it had been most of the time Beth had been gone; whisked away from her family. Glenn didn't know how to console Maggie, or how to help the Greenes other than work at the orchard and try and support his wife the best he could.

Hershel watched his son-in-law run after his tempestuous daughter, and sighed.

"She doesn't understand why her sister can't be home," Annette said. Quite frankly, she didn't understand it fully either, but she had put enough trust in the justice system to give it the benefit of a doubt.

"She doesn't understand the whole situation," Hershel replied, "She doesn't understand that Daryl Dixon still thinks Beth is dead, and he blames himself for that."

The Java Joe's was busy and full at midday. It was the first place Rick Grimes had thought of when he had set up the meeting with Eric Raleigh, and he was slowly beginning to feel it had been a wrong choice.

Special Agent Eric Raleigh and Sheriff Rick Grimes sat in the corner of the coffeehouse, trying to act as if they were just two friends having coffee, and look less conspicuous. They had huddled close to one another, talking about mundane things, at first, but after a while they had relaxed a bit. People who had come in at the coffeehouse ate and drank around them, paying absolutely no attention to them.

Eric, managing to be less nervous, sipped his coffee once and then turned to look at Rick under his brow and leaning his elbows against the table nervously.

"Any news?"

As a reply, Rick shook his head and leaned his elbows on the table as well, mirroring Eric's posture.

"This is blowing out of proportions," Rick mumbled low, not looking up at Eric.

"What do you mean?" Eric inquired.

"There's been a car parked outside our house for the past four days. Another car has been following Michonne and the kids too. She hadn't noticed before, only when I told her about the black van outside. The next day she saw it following Carl, Judith and RJ to school."

Rick's words made Eric frown. He held the coffee cup still in his hands, in front of his mouth, as he then replied to him, "Aaron said something about a black car being parked in front of his office building, too. I tried to get him to leave the city, go visit some of his relatives. No luck."

"I tried to talk to Michonne, too, but she isn't budging. She ain't leaving the city," Rick sighed, resigned to his fate that his wife was just expecting him to figure it out and fix the situation, "She's gonna just be all over this, reviewing all the files from the case and trial and…. I get to worry."

Eric chortled briefly, realizing how much he understood this gruff looking Sheriff.

"But you don't know where Daryl is?" Eric asked, placing the coffee cup on the table. Rick noticed immediately that his lips barely moved as he spoke, and it suddenly sent an instant nervous wave over him. He glanced hastily around him; paranoia seemed to set in too easily, which didn't suit Rick at all.

In response to Eric's question, though, he shook his head, and continued to observe all the people around him discreetly.

He had no idea where Daryl and Beth had gone to. He had tried to call Daryl early that same morning, but he hadn't answered his phone or called him back. Just before he had showed up in the coffeehouse, he had tried to call Daryl again, but no avail.

Eric's last piece of intel about the couple was in the vicinity of the cabin where Beth had been placed. The US Marshals had notified the Bureau about the attack at the cabin, but neither Daryl nor Beth had been found on the premises. Instead, an old acquaintance of the law, a bounty hunter Jim Hobart, was found dead. It seemed to be too much of a coincidence to be irrelevant to the case.

"I gotta ask," Rick started, "Do you trust the people at the Bureau?"

Eric frowned a little and remained quiet as he gave a quick once over around the coffeehouse.

The people inside milled about, chitchatted with their friends and co-workers and paid no attention to the two men in the corner. It all seemed mundanely normal lunch hour in a place like this.

"Keep your voice down," Eric whispered, not moving his lips more than necessary.

"We are getting paranoid about this," Rick sighed, quietly, leaning closer to Eric.

"This place is loud and crowded now, but if this is a conspiracy, and the people responsible for this are keeping an eye on us, they could be using all the surveillance techniques in the book. Including parabolic microphones, lip reading, every possible microphone there is."

Rick straightened in the chair and frowned. He quickly adopted the barely audible voice of Eric's and grouched closer to him.

"Yeah, I don't know how deep this reaches. If it is a conspiracy, I don't see what they are after. What could possibly be something so important that requires these people go after a disgraced ex-cop and a nurse from rural Georgia," he said, and shook his head.

Eric nodded.

"This is getting dangerous for everyone," Rick said, hand in front of his mouth.

"Do you want to back out? Would you?" Eric asked, tilting his head. He was confident that Rick wouldn't, but he at least had to see it through, to make sure that Rick wasn't going to throw in the towel at a crucial moment. He didn't know the man well enough to say he wasn't a quitter.

"Fuck no. Daryl is my friend."

"Well, then we just make those bastards run in circles until we have some hard evidence to clear this mess of a case," Eric stated. He didn't know Daryl Dixon well enough either, but his trial, and the whole investigation of the incident at the Grady Memorial had been botched up in a way that the sworn officer of the law like Eric couldn't overlook.

"Yeah, I want to clear Daryl's name, and bring Beth back home," Rick agreed.

Hunched over, and held up by Jesus and Beth, Daryl stared at the man standing at the doorway of the RV.

His long scraggly hair looked like he hadn't washed it in years and his sparse beard reminded Daryl of grass burned by drought in California. Half of the man's face was disformed, burned, and despite Daryl had not seen him in years he couldn't have been anyone else.

"Dwight," Daryl breathed and growled from his throat, blinded by rage that suddenly took him over.

Dwight Austin, Former Lieutenant in the Marine Corps, stared down at the newcomers, and pressed his mouth into a tight line for a second. He then opened it, and as he looked at Daryl straight in the eyes, he directed his words to Jesus.

"Didn't tell me there would be company."

"Look who's talking," Daryl barked back, trying to shake both Jesus and Beth from him. He didn't want to look weak in front of someone like Dwight.

"You can't even stand, Dixon," Dwight returned, sounding only slightly concerned for Daryl.

"Fuck you," Daryl barked back and stumbled forward. He managed to get his balance back quickly but not before his face distorted from pain that jolted through his abdomen from a movement that didn't suit with the injury.

"Daryl, sweetie," Jesus said hastily, stepping in front of the injured and possibly delirious man, placing his arms onto his shoulders, "Let's not get into a fight with this. You have friends with you," he said meaningfully and nodded towards Beth and Joe.

"Friends…" he growled, still staring at Dwight.

"Daryl, you are with friends," Jesus rephrased, insisted, as he held tightly on Daryl's arm.

He still glowered at the man standing in the doorway of the RV, but he allowed Jesus to hold him back. He was in no condition to fight Dwight, and even if it didn't escalate into that he was already looking like a weakling in front of the man he loathed from the bottom of his heart.

"He's a medic," Jesus then said, and looked over his shoulder at Dwight, "He can look at your injuries."

"Beth's a nurse… I trust her more than I trust him," Daryl growled, "Ain't gonna let them take her away again. I failed her once," he continued. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead, and he licked his lips once or twice as he tried to keep his composure.

"Beth?" Rose asked quickly and her eyes were wide from shock, "You called me that before."

"She doesn't know who she is?" Dwight blurted out and that made Daryl groan. He took one or two steps, he wasn't sure, trying to get over to the blonde man to smack some sense into him but failed as he fell on the ground and passed out, once more.

Waking up in a strange bed wasn't anything new to Daryl. He had woken up in places he seldom wanted to rethink. This time he was in a tiny bedroom, with dark brown blinders and brown and white sheets. The bed felt ridiculously large, and soft. Jesus sat next to him dabbing his forehead with a cold piece of fabric that Daryl figured out to be a towel. He relaxed a bit at the familiar face and drifted back into slumber.

Daryl fluttered in and out of consciousness and darkness for a good while after that. Whenever he came to, he saw blurred faces of people fretting around him, carrying towels and gauze and discussing about their options as to what to do.

He heard the voices of the people bubble through a veil of consciousness, like from underwater, and he felt every prod and prick they continued to do. He felt hot and cold at the same time, and he felt his gut hurt now more than before. It wasn't a dull, repetitive throb anymore, but a burning and piercing ache.

At some point he found Jesus had climbed onto the bed, and both he and Beth were lifting up his shirt, unwrapping the bandages from his abdomen like he was some disgusting Christmas present.

"Don't move, boy," Joe's voice pierced the barrier of his consciousness and his eyes flew wide open, and he almost jumped up from the bed. First thing he saw was Beth's face tear streaked and frightened, and then his eyes landed on Jesus and Dwight's faces distorted even more now than through the haze and he realized he was in a shit creek without a paddle.

Something cool touched his clammy skin, and he looked at the direction of it, seeing her face clear as day. Her face made it all better. The woman was his God given solace.

"Beth…" he whispered, not sure if she could hear him. But she did. Her face turned to look at him, and she smiled, like she had recognized him finally after all this time. He reached for her hand, entwining his fingers with hers and she let him do that.

"Beth… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he mumbled. He failed to notice how Dwight and Jesus glanced at each other, all he saw was her face. Same face that had haunted his nights since the incident.

"They didn't… tell… me you were alive…" he continued.

"Daryl, you need to sit," Dwight said, and he ignored the blonde haired man.

"Daryl, I don't think this is the - -," Jesus began but stopped as he saw Beth's face, staring at Daryl with confusion and curiosity.

"They told me you died, and I'm so fucking sorry…. I couldn't protect you…"

"Get him back on the bed," Dwight said to Beth and she nodded.

Gently, placing her hands on his shoulders and smiling the whole time, she pushed until Daryl was lowering down on his own, still holding her gaze in his eyes.

"He's delirious," Joe interjected and wrapped his arm around Beth's shoulders, "C'mon, let's go out, I bet my last nickel that the boys can handle this."

"But…" she tried to object. Daryl saw her face, her reluctance to leave the premises and especially with Joe, and it made him want to clamber up; kill the bastard that tried to take Beth away from him again, but he was held in place by Jesus.

"Don't get up, it's fine. She's safe."

"They want to kill us," he hissed.

"You're safe here. Nobody knows you're here," Dwight, the pragmatist said, and grabbed a pack of gauze they had liberated from a first aid kit.

Somehow it didn't relieve Daryl at all, and he grabbed Jesus' collar almost violently, pulling the bearded man closer to his face.

"If anything happens to Beth… If anything happens to me, you gotta make sure she is safe," he hissed, demanding Jesus to protect Beth if he wasn't going to make it.

"Daryl… You're feverish and delirious," Jesus began, "You're gonna be fine, and nobody is gonna hurt Rose," Jesus said and began peeling his fingers off his shirt.

"Am not," Daryl barked back, and grabbed Jesus' fingers in a death grip. He squeezed hard when Dwight began cleaning the wound as gently as he could, eyeing at Daryl and Jesus with disdain. He moved quickly and when he was done, he reached for the small scissors and began cutting the stitches Beth had made earlier, back in her cabin.

"These are perfectly done, you know," Dwight started, "She's a nurse, right?"

"Don't try and make small talk, asshole," Daryl growled.

"You don't have to like me, Daryl, but I am trying to clean you up so you aren't going to die of a septic shock anytime soon," Dwight said not looking at Daryl as he focused on the stitches.

"Yeah," Daryl huffed, "She was a nurse. Before the incident."

"She's good. She probably saved your sorry ass," the former medic replied and chuckled. Daryl already knew that. She had saved his sorry ass more often than not. He huffed a reply and shifted on the bed. Dwight's scissors were still caught on the stitch and as Daryl moved, it ripped off making him grimace out in pain. Blood began trickling out of the wound and Dwight grabbed a towel, pressing it against the infected flesh.

"Fuck," he grumbled, and gave a look at Daryl. Daryl winced and looked back at him. There was no love lost in the gaze he gave at Dwight, but even in this situation he knew his best chances were with a field medic with more hours clocked in a battlefield than most of the trauma surgeons in the best hospitals.

Dwight Austin had been the medic of the platoon they had all served in on.

He had been Jesus and Daryl's friend in the beginning. That friendship had crumbled when they had been shipped off to a training exercise to a classified location. That training exercise had turned into a rescue mission on an American oil rig, that had demanded a life of a fellow Marine and injured another.

Investigation had taken six months. Dwight and the team leader had been suspected of lot of things. In the end, the team leader had been transferred away and Dwight had been cleared on all charges. It had rubbed the rest of the team wrong way when he had been promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant not long after, and later upped as the team leader.

Sergeant Tomas Alvarez had not been one of the likeable members of the team, but he had been a Marine, and his death was mourned with all of the appropriate seriousness, but it was not remembered. What really hit Daryl hard was the injury of Guillermo Rios. He had been his first spotter before being accepted into Scout Sniper course and becoming a Sniper himself. After the injury Guillermo had been honourably discharged. He had been paid compensations for the sustained injuries, but his life had taken an almost violent turn from being a member of their team to becoming a custodian at an elderly care unit.

"Remember that GOPLAT mission?" Daryl asked from Dwight, making Jesus stop what he was doing, sterilizing the needles.

Dwight quieted down as well, and glanced at Daryl from under his brow, nodding slowly, ready to pounce if he was going to start a fight.

"Don't you think for a second that I trust you anymore after that, you got Guillermo clipped," Daryl began.

"I know."

"Gonna blow your brains out and have some peace of mind if you fuck this up."

"Got it."

"It's not stopping," Jesus said quickly, and pointed at Daryl's abdomen. Dwight looked at him and then at Daryl, effectively shutting up Daryl in the process as his pupils dilated and he shot up from the edge of the bed. Jesus was fretting by now and looking at the blood trickle out of the wound, slow at first but with increasing speed.

"Son of a bitch! Must have hit a blood vessel. Fuck," Dwight growled and grabbed a piece of ripped towel placing it hastily on the wound.

"Yeah, gonna bleed out, oh goody," Daryl said and coughed, "You gonna keep her safe, Jesus."

"Not funny, Daryl," Jesus said, and glanced out of the window at the blonde woman, sitting in a large pillow surrounded with her dogs, and at Joe, standing guard over her with his rifle at his side looking grim.

"Hey," Dwight said, grabbing Daryl's collar and catching his attention, "That's not gonna happen. You're not leaving me to clean this fucking mess up with those two idiots," he continued to complain, as he poked a bloodied thumb over his shoulder.

Daryl scoffed, he shifted as the sheets under him began feeling sticky and wet from blood. He wasn't so sure about this, but then again, he had been swearing himself off over the last couple of days more than enough.

"Sure, believe what you will," Daryl growled.

"Shut up. Now, I got an idea, but it's gonna fucking hurt."

"It already fucking hurts," Daryl hissed, and coughed again.

"That's the spirit. Just like the old days," Dwight chuckled.

"Yeah, sure," Daryl scoffed, and rolled his eyes. Dwight shrugged nonchalantly and stood up. He trotted to the kitchen of Jesus' RV. There, on the wall, Jesus had his glass case with his weapons and ammunition. Dwight sneered at the sight of a lock on the case.

"The key?!" he called out.

Jesus ran into the kitchen pulling out a drawer and rummaging through the papers and pens to find the key in a simple ring.

"The fuck you - -," he began as he handed over the key to Dwight and stopped in horror as he realized what he was aiming to do.

"Fuck no! You can't do that!"

"You don't have no anaesthetics so, this is pretty much the only fucking thing I can come up with in such short notice. Unless we take him to the hospital."

"No!" Daryl growled, "Just do what ever it is that you're doing."

Dwight nodded, pressing his lips into a tight line once more, and began opening the gun case. He reached in and began shifting the small boxes of ammunition and some knives around in order to find what he was looking for. He sunk his hand into the large box, and picked up a handful of shotgun shells, turning around and handing them over to Jesus. He turned back to the case and slammed the doors shut. It might have been an infraction not to lock the case again, but Dwight didn't care. He moved over to the utensils case and picked up a knife, which he handed over to Jesus bluntly.

"Get them open and… and pour the powder on a piece of paper. Where are your sheets?" Dwight barked an order and gave a quick glance around the RV.

"In there," Jesus mumbled, staring at the shells on his hands and shook his head. He moved over to the counter and began prying open the plastic casing of the shells and separating the powder from the gunk.

Dwight moved back to the bed and looked at Daryl incredulously. He reached for some pants that laid on the ground and yanked the leather belt off it.

"Bite on that," he said, handing it to Daryl, "Cauterizing a wound with gunpowder is way worse than you think," he added, looking over his shoulder at Jesus who walked in carrying the cone he had folded from the paper with the gunpowder inside.

"You keep him down," Dwight said to Jesus as he took the paper cone from him, when he was reluctant to hand it over.

"Fucking hell, Dwight, this isn't right," Jesus objected, but moved to stand next to Daryl's head. He watched as Dwight poured the gunpowder Jesus had collected onto the trickling wounds. It was harder than one would imagine. The blood continued to spill out and drag the cracking, crust like gunpowder down. Dwight lost his patience quickly, nodding at Jesus who reached to grab Daryl's shoulders he pulled out his lighter from his pocket.

Daryl panted heavily, his skin was aflame with the infection and the anticipation of searing pain. Sweat pooled onto the hollow of his abdomen, swirling with the blood and gunpowder.

His eyes focused on Dwight's hands, when he fished out a lighter from his pockets.

Jesus' weight was on his shoulders all of a sudden and he glanced up. Just at that same moment, Dwight lit up the gunpowder. It took few seconds for Daryl's pain receptors to activate; he was already brutally injured after all. When he felt his flesh begin to singe, he screamed out loud, grunting and thrashing as Jesus held his shoulders and Dwight launched himself over his legs.

"Shh! It's over!" Jesus shushed him.

The gunpowder burned bright and fast. It sizzled in the wound and made Daryl squirm. As the flame subsided, so did Daryl's cries. He panted heavily, crushing Jesus' arm with his as he glanced down at his abdomen, bloodied and ragged.

"It did the job," Dwight murmured, as he crawled closer to inspect the burn marks and the wounds. He grabbed a piece of gauze and began dabbing it on Daryl's skin, wiping away the blood as he went.

"Yeah, it did the job," Jesus sighed, able to breathe again, "You scared me there for a second, Daryl. Looks like the bleeding has stopped, though."

"Thank you," Daryl croaked at Dwight. He nodded but said nothing in reply.

"So, how's your prostate now?" Jesus asked, from Daryl all of a sudden and made the former Marine groan out loud in frustration. He tried to stammer back a reply, but before he could do that he passed out.

"Daryl…?" Rose's frail voice asked from the door, and the two men turned to look at her in unison.

Rose sat on a large pillow on the ground and listened to the waves crash steadily against the sand of the beach some distance away in the darkness. Somewhere, not far away, the busy highway buzzed with cars and trucks, but most of the sounds were still drowned out by the sounds of the nightly ocean.

"You're confused about all this, aren't you?"

Jesus' voice said from behind her in the half-darkness under the canopy stretched in front of his RV home. The lights from inside the RV created long shadows on the sand and the fake grass, and pillows.

She startled only a little, looking up to see the long haired and bearded man sit next to her on another large pillow. He was wearing a simple sleeveless white top, and ridiculously colourful baggy pants. He slouched on the pillow, lifting his arms up and gathering his hair onto a messy bun atop of his head.

She had to admit, to his question, that she was indeed, confused because everyone seemed to know her and Daryl. Everyone also had that same sad look in their eyes when they spoke with her.

"So, Blondie, whatcha wanna ask?" Jesus asked, and grinned at her.

Rose looked at him and chuckled. It was probably the first genuine laughter she had had since leaving Washington state. She shook her head instead and returned to look at the dark beach.

"C'mon, you got to have a question or two in your head," Jesus encouraged.

She remained quiet for a moment, and then looked at him, "Okay, what's with the name? Jesus?"

"Just something I was given," he said, laughing a little.

"How?"

"Apparently when my beard started to grow, and my hair grew longer I looked like Jesus. Apostle was too preachy for them apparently. That's the short version."

She kept looking at him but said nothing.

"That's the Marines, or basically any military for you, ma'am," he said, "They give these ridiculous nicknames to people."

This time, she nodded as a reply.

"Daryl's nickname was Cobra. Well, actually it was Chupacabra," Jesus began, "That boy had such a vivid imagination! He kept telling us this story how he had seen a Chupacabra once. Hence we started to call him Chupacabra. But really… in the end it was a bit too long to be efficient, and we changed it to 'Cabra but then someone misheard it and it got switched into Cobra," he said, chuckling as he went on with the most irrelevant story. He realized it too, looking at Rose and pressing his lips tightly shut.

She just nodded, frowning for a second, worrying and chewing her bottom lip aggressively. She looked at Jesus, almost like a bunny in the headlights, and Jesus could see the question bubbling behind her widened eyes. He took a deep breath and braced himself for the question. He didn't mind answering, he just wasn't sure how bluntly it would be voiced out.

"You asked… uh… You asked Daryl about…. umm… I can't even say it," she mumbled, "Are you and Daryl…?" she stammered, struggling to find the right words and not sound ignorant fool, "Is Daryl gay?" she added, finally unable to stop her mouth from asking what she had wanted to ask.

"Nah, not exclusively," he replied, shaking his head and smirking again, like every time he was talking to or about Daryl.

"I don't understand," Rose whispered, shaking her head, "All of this has been nothing but running for my life, avoiding bullets, and every situation is just new and so confusing."

"I don't mind explaining," he replied cheerily. His chipper voice made Rose look over her shoulder at the trailer, thinking about Daryl still out cold, and seeing Dwight and Joe sitting on the couch drinking beer.

"He's gonna be out like a light for a little while longer. What his body went through with the injury and how we had to treat him…" Paul said, when he noticed her worried look.

"He saved my life."

"He has that kind of a pesky habit of doing so,"

"How do you mean?"

"A long story, sweetie," Jesus replied, but looking at the woman made him re-evaluate the situation, "Back in the Corps he saved my ass so many times I stopped counting after I got up to ten," Paul said, and wiggled his fingers up in front of his face. There were some strange tattoos on the base of each finger, just above the knuckles. She tried to focus on them, but Jesus brought his hands to his lap and crossed his fingers, partially covering the tattoos.

"You saw them," he chuckled, he said and looked down at his hands. He let his fingers trace over some of them gently.

"It was a classified mission, can't go into details, but just before we got into it, I kinda got piss drunk in Ha Long City, and stumbled into this tattoo place. Got these tattooed, one for each time Daryl cheated death for me. I think there's about twenty notches there."

"Don't recommend it, though. Not before a mission. You have no idea how badly my fingers hurt, and trying to operate and do precision work… Fuck no."

Rose nodded, still chewing her bottom lip.

She was trying to figure out when he was going to answer her question about Daryl being gay, possibly. She watched him rub his knuckles and fingers, and look over to his right, at the RV, remaining quiet for a good while.

"I was his spotter," he finally said.

"What's that?"

"Okay, so… There's only so much one sniper can do. Sometimes it is required for them to operate on their own, but it usually takes a lot longer and they are good for just one shot. It's also dangerous to go on a mission on their own."

"The best snipers can do it all, despite being there on their own, and being less efficient. Really, even the piss poor bastards who barely pass their training can do it. They can check the wind velocity, distance and the tilt. They can calculate the difference and make all the corrections and they know how to adjust their weapon for that one kill shot. They can wait in silence for days if need be. Daryl… he is one of the best. But he was so much deadlier when I was with him, doing half of the work and covering his back. You don't want to get stuck alone behind enemy lines during a black ops mission when you weren't supposed to be in a certain country in the first place."

Rose listened to Jesus speak. The picture of Daryl was slowly forming in her mind into something clearer.

"Daryl and me, we were a team."

She gave a look at Jesus, but clearly, he wasn't done talking.

"The boy is fine as 1787 Chateau Margaux wine, but he has his boundaries. He operates on his own code of conduct. Daryl and I, we were together for 12 years. We were a team in the Corps, we went on missions together. We were friends, we still are friends," he said, and gave a quick look at Rose, "We did fool around few times, and we both fucking love each other, but after we were discharged, and he became a cop, and I wanted to see the better part of the world… and later when he met this girl…. He only had eyes for her. He would have died for her. He nearly did."

"Would have?" Rose asked, her voice trembling. It felt almost as if her gut was in knots.

"She was shot," Jesus replied, looking at Rose.

"Did… did she die?"

"He thought so. We all thought so. He was accused of it. He was actually arrested, and tried for it. They blamed him for negligence," he replied with broken sentences, not really wanting to try and reason the whole thing.

"She was alive still?"

Jesus nodded.

"But…" she tried to reason. Her head had started to ache, and she was feeling dizzy. It felt too familiar for some reason and she didn't like the feeling of knots in her stomach.

"He was broken in the prison for a while. When they released him, there were people who tried to kill him multiple times. So… he chose a profession he loathed. It wasn't like was going to just go back to the Corps and re-enlist or go back to his old precinct and get his job back as a cop. We lost touch at some point, this is the first time he has reached out. Rightly so, but still. He thought he had lost the only light in his life and I had found out from his brother only a while back that she hadn't died, and that she had been relocated by the WITSEC."

She gasped and her eyes flew wide open.

The bright, hospital room was filled with people. There were cops in uniform, cops in civilian clothing and nurses and doctors and security guard crowding the room.

"Daryl!" a woman that appeared to be her spitting image shouted, in a frantic, panicky voice as she was held firmly in place by a female police officer with a gun pointed to her head.

"Beth!" Daryl shouted, "BETH!"

His arms were up and he held his gun dangling on his finger, as he approached Beth and the female police slowly.

"Drop the guns, all of you! Or I will fucking kill this bitch!" the woman shouted, and yanked Beth backwards as she backed deeper into the room.

"Lerner, you ain't got no way out! This ends here," Daryl replied, his voice tense, and his jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together almost violently.

"Don't pretend for one second you can tell me what to do! I will kill her! You're gonna make sure I'll get out of this place alive!" the woman, Lerner, said chortling maliciously.

"Do that, and I'll kill you."

"She shouldn't have been snooping around! You fucking put her up for that, didn't you?!" she shouted frantically, "You were warned about this, Dixon! You were warned from investigating this matter… It goes so far above your paygrade!"

"I was - - ouch! I was doing my job! There were injured officers in there!" Beth tried to reason with her.

"Shut up, goody-two-shoes!" Lerner growled and jabbed the barrel of her weapon painfully against Beth's skull.

How could Rose feel the pain if it was someone else, someone named Beth? She couldn't understand it.

"Drop your gun, get on the floor, and put your hands behind your back!" Daryl growled, still advancing closer to the two women. Another officer in jeans and cowboy boots stood at the doorway, aiming a gun at the female officer.

"I'm walking out of this place," Lerner hissed, "You have no fucking clue who you're dealing with! Blake is going to destroy you all if I…."

At that moment Beth stepped on her toes. It made her lose her balance for a second, but that was enough for her to react badly. She yanked Beth from her arm, and then a gun shot echoed in the dreary examination room.

"BETH, NO!"


End file.
